You can use variables to solve this problem. Lets say that m is men, w is women, and c is children. m+w+c=266 four times as many men as children in ‘math words’ would be 4c=m twice as many women as children would be 2c=w what we can do now is plug those in to make everything easier with one variable 4c+2c+c=266 7c=266 c=38 now we have how many children, and we need to plug it back into what we have for women and men. 4c=m 4(38)=m m=152 2c=w 2(38)=w w=76