So the main way to do problems like this is to think of all of the many ways to get from x to y. You start with the first one and as you go through them, you should be able to funnel out all of the ones that don’t work. For these problems, you really have to be able to think outside of the box. Because there is an interaction between these (x starts off less than y and becomes more than y), we know that we will have to do either division or multiplication AND either addition or subtraction. It may seem especially tricky because x starts off less than y but then it becomes bigger than it so really any multiplicative formula is out of the question because, after x is bigger than y, we don’t want to multiply it and make it even bigger. So now we know to use division. If we divide these by anything, we can’t use subtraction because that will make the x even lower and it will not equate to y. So now we know that we will use division AND addition. If we use this and look at the first pair, we can see a few problems that work and that may work on another one as well. So now we consider this and by now I hope you will have figured it out. The way you get from x to y is you divide x by 2, then you add 2. Written in formula style, it would be:
y=(x/2)+2
I hope that this answers your question and that my thought process helps you on future problems!
