Ana has three times as many stickers as Bo. Together they have 48. How many does Bo have?
Text description of the figure
A bar model. Bo's bar is one box. Ana's bar is three boxes of the same size, drawn beneath it. A bracket spanning all four boxes is labelled 48.
Hints
Take them one at a time. The first gives nothing away.
1A nudge
Draw Bo as one box and Ana as three.
2The strategy
Three times as many means Ana's bar is three boxes to Bo's one. Count how many equal boxes the whole 48 covers before dividing anything.
3The full solution
Four equal boxes make 48, so one box is 12. Bo has one box, so Bo has 12.
Solution— no shortcut on this one
Draw Bo as one box and Ana as three boxes of the same size. Together that is four equal boxes covering 48, so one box is 48 divided by 4 = 12. Bo has one box, so Bo has 12 and Ana has 36. Check: 12 + 36 = 48, and 36 is three times 12. The transferable idea: count the boxes in the whole picture before dividing - the total is not split between two people, it is split between four equal parts.
Why this is on the test: Three times as many creates four parts, not three, and that miscount is the standard error in every part-whole problem.