fraction problem- help please

[rejim2]

Hi all,

Heena had some stickers. She gave 18 stickers to her sister and 5/7 of the stickers to Mary. Then, she used 3/4 of the remainder for her project and had 35 stickers left. How many stickers did she have at first?

Any easy and quick methods would be much appreciated.
Thanks

[Guest55]

Try working backwards - if she had 35 left then how many did she use for her project? (Hint - the 35 must have been what fraction?)

Once you've got that then undo the first bit.

Have a go and get back to us ...

[moved]

This is another example of where I would use bars. Like G55 says work backwards.

Remainder is a bar cut into 4 equal pieces with 35 in the final piece.
This will give you the remaining stickers.

The next bar will be cut into 7 pieces with 5 of the 7 labelled Mary.
The other two pieces will be the total of the 18 given to the sister and the total of the first bar that you drew.
This gives you 2/7. Halving will give you 1/7.
Multiplying by 7 will give you the original total.

[rejim2]

Thank-you Guest 55 for your suggestion.
Thank-you Moved. That helped in having a clear picture. This bar calculation
is a brilliant idea,