There are 4 times as many people as chairs at the town meeting. 24 people had to stand. How many chairs were there?

72, 96, 6 and 24 are not the correct answer.

Please explain or show work for solution.

With word problems, always draw a picture first.

Total people
People on chairs
People standing

There are 4 times as much people than there are chairs, right?

This means that 3 times the number of chairs gives the number of people that don't have a seat, right?

From this, can you figure out the answer to this question?

:)

There were 8 chairs and 32 people.
lets take x - chairs
y = people
number of people were 4 times the number of chairs. Hence
4x = y.
also, after all the chairs were occupied, 24 people were standing. Hence number of people minus number of chairs is
y-x=24. Substitute value of y here.
4x-x=24
3x=24
x=8, which yields y=32.
That's the answer. 8 chairs and 32 people. Check it, number of people are 4 times number of chair. And after 8 people sat on the chair, 24 people were left standing.

I refrained from going into algebra since it's 6th grade. If that is the equivalent of stardard 6, the current system in my country, the students haven't learned algebra yet, and that's why I didn't get there and posted a more simplistic and logical approach. Also, BK201, avoid posting the answers. It's better to wait and see how the asker works it out.

This exercise might also show any problem the asker doesn't know about :)

Ohhh.. my bad. Forgot the country differences. :) Thanks