An athlete ran 1200 laps around the track over a two month period. he ran 4 times the number of laps in the second month. how many laps did the athlete run in the first month?

First make an equation from the information given:
Lets say x is the number of laps in the first month.
How would we express what x is in relationship to the total laps.
Well:
1200= laps in the first month + laps in the second month
we know that laps in the second month is equal to 4 times the amount in the first month so:
1200= laps in the first month + 4*laps in the first month
we already decided x=laps in the first month so we can write our equation as:
1200=x+4x
now solve!
x+4x simplifies to 5x
so now we have:
5x=1200
now divide the 5 over and you get
x= 240
so 240 laps were ran in the first month!
you can plug the x value back into the equation to double check it:
(240)+4(240)=1200
1200=1200