Sally bought a few marbles and divided it equally among four of her friends and her brother, george. while playing, george lost 2 marbles and has only 7 marbles at present. find how many marbles sally bought in all.

So if George lost 2 marbles, and he now has 7then he originally had 9 marbles to begin with.

and if Sally bought the marbles and split them equally with 4 friends and her bro...so she split them equally with 5 peopleand being she gave George 9, then she gave all the others 9 as well.

that means that she bought (9 * 5) = 45 marbles <==