alice picked a number of pears , each of which she sold , canned , or poached . she canned 20 percent more than she poached , and she poached 50 percent less than she sold . if there were a total of 42 pears , then how many pears did she sell ?
let x be the amount of pears that she sold . then she poached 0.5 x . then she canned 1.2 * 0.5 x = 0.6 x . the total amount of pears is x + 0.5 x + 0.6 x = 2.1 x the fraction of pears that she sold is 1 / 2.1 = 10 / 21 . the number of pears she sold is ( 10 / 21 ) * 42 = 20 . the answer is a .
divide(42, add(const_1, add(divide(50, const_100), multiply(divide(50, const_100), add(const_1, divide(20, const_100))))))