Answer :

mhanifa

15 cookies

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Let x be the total number of cookies.

After eating 3, Maria had 4/5 of the batch left, this can be shown as equation:

  • x - 3 = 4/5x

Solve for x, multiply both sides by 5:

  • 5x - 15 = 4x
  • 5x - 4x = 15
  • x = 15

Therefore, Maria baked 15 cookies in total.

Maria baked a total of 15 cookies. After eating 3 cookies, she had 4/5 of the batch left, which confirms our calculation. This problem demonstrates solving basic algebraic equations.

To find out how many cookies Maria baked originally, we start by setting up an equation. Let x be the total number of cookies Maria baked.

According to the problem, after eating 3 cookies, Maria had 4/5 of the batch left:

x - 3 = (4/5)x

To solve this, we can set up the equation and simplify it step-by-step:

  1. x - 3 = (4/5)x
  2. Subtract (4/5)x from both sides to get: x - (4/5)x - 3 = 0
  3. Simplify the left-hand side: (1 - 4/5)x - 3 = 0
  4. This becomes: (1/5)x - 3 = 0
  5. Next, add 3 to both sides: (1/5)x = 3
  6. Finally, multiply both sides by 5 to solve for x: x = 3 * 5
  7. This gives us x = 15

Therefore, Maria baked a total of 15 cookies.

For an example, if Maria eats 3 cookies out of the 15, she would have 15 - 3 = 12 cookies left, which is indeed 4/5 of the original batch.