Carcass wrote:
If b = 8d - c, and a = d/3, what is the average of a, b, c and d?
(A) 4a
(B) 7a
(C) a/7
(D) 4a + 7
(E) a/7 + 5
When I scan the answer choices, I see that all of the answer choices are in terms of the variable a.
This tells me I need to express each variable in terms of a. 
For example, we can take the equation a = d/3 and multiply both sides by 3 to get: 
d = 3aNow take: b = 8d - c
Add c to both sides: b + c = 8d
Divide both sides by 8 to get: d = (b + c)/8
Since we already know that 
d = 3a, we can replace d with 3a in the above equation to get: 3a  = (b + c)/8
Now multiply both sides of the equation by 8 to get: 
24a  = b + cAverage of the four values = (a + 
b + c + 
d)/4
Substitute to get: average = (a + 
24a + 
3a)/4 = 28a/4 = 7a
Answer: B