On Monday the post office delivered 425 letters. On Tuesday they delivered 17 more than one-fifth as many as Monday. On Wednesday they delivered 5 more than twice as many as they delivered on Tuesday. How many letters did the post office deliver Monday - Wednesday?

Answer: The post office delivered a total of 736 letters from Monday to Wednesday.

Step-by-step solution

Step 1: Calculate letters delivered on Monday

The problem states directly that 425 letters were delivered on Monday. This is our starting point for the calculations.

Step 2: Calculate letters delivered on Tuesday

The problem specifies that on Tuesday, the post office delivered 17 more than one-fifth of the letters delivered on Monday. We first find one-fifth of Monday's letters and then add 17 to that value.

Step 3: Perform calculation for Tuesday's letters

We substitute the number of letters from Monday into the expression for Tuesday. Calculating one-fifth of 425 gives us 85. Adding 17 to this result, we find that 102 letters were delivered on Tuesday.

Step 4: Calculate letters delivered on Wednesday

The problem states that on Wednesday, 5 more than twice the number of letters delivered on Tuesday were delivered. We will first double Tuesday's delivery count and then add 5.

Step 5: Perform calculation for Wednesday's letters

Using the calculated number of letters for Tuesday (102), we multiply it by 2, which gives 204. Adding 5 to this sum yields 209 letters delivered on Wednesday.

Step 6: Calculate total letters delivered from Monday to Wednesday

To find the total number of letters delivered from Monday to Wednesday, we sum the number of letters delivered on each of these three days.

Step 7: Perform calculation for total letters

We add the letters delivered on Monday (425), Tuesday (102), and Wednesday (209) together. First, we add 425+102=527425 + 102 = 527. Then, 527+209=736527 + 209 = 736. Thus, the total number of letters delivered during this period is 736.

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