Jerry had some action figures on a shelf in his room. Later he added w more action figures to the shelf. If there are a total of x action figures on his shelf now How many action figures did he have initially on the shelf?
Jerry had some action figures on a shelf in his room. Later he added w more action figures to the shelf.

This means that at some point, Jerry had w action figures on his shelf. We don't know how many action figures he had before he added w more, but we do know that after he added w more, he had a total of x action figures on his shelf.

So, we can say that x = w + some other number. In other words, the total number of action figures Jerry has on his shelf now is equal to the number of action figures he added plus the number of action figures he had originally.

We don't know what w is, but we do know what x is, so we can solve for w:

x = w + some other number

x - some other number = w

x - x = w - x

0 = w - x

w = x