An athlete ran 1200 laps around the track over a two month period. He ran 4 times the number of laps in the second month. How many laps did the athlete run in the first month?

600 because what is half 1200

First make an equation from the information given:

Lets say x is the number of laps in the first month.

How would we express what x is in relationship to the total laps.

Well:

1200 = laps in the first month + laps in the second month

we know that laps in the second month is equal to 4 times the amount in the first month so:

1200 = laps in the first month + 4*laps in the first month

we already decided x=laps in the first month so we can write our equation as:

1200=x+4x

now solve!

x+4x simplifies to 5x

so now we have:

5x=1200

now divide the 5 over and you get

x = 240

so 240 laps were ran in the first month!

you can plug the x value back into the equation to double check it:

(240) + 4 (240) = 1200

1200=1200