This page is open to all but is specifically for students of PreAlgebra using the text Passport to Algebra and Geometry, copyright 2002 by McDougal Littell. All links are coordinated with current selected topics being covered in class. Students are encouraged to make helpful suggestions that would improve the usefulness of this page. If you are attempting the Problem Challenge, be sure to include all your work with the solution.

Late one night a burglar somehow got into the vault at the Onion River National Bank and started out with a big sack of money. No one really knows how much he stole. At any rate, on his way out, he was stopped by one of the guards, who caught him "holding the bag" so to speak. Fortunately for him, the burglar was able to talk his way out of trouble by offering the guard half the money he had taken with a bonus of $2,000 thrown in. Just as he was walking away, praising his good luck at having gotten free, he was stopped by a second guard. It took the same bribe, half of all the money he had left, with $2,000 thrown in, to get by the second guard. Just as he was about to leave, you guessed it, he was stopped by yet a third guard who let him go only after receiving half of all the burglar had left, with $2,000 thrown in.

By the time the burglar left the bank, he had mixed emotions. After all, he did leave with $9,000 more than he had when he arrived and he escaped a free man. But as he thought of all the money he had left behind with the guards, he wept. How much money was originally taken?