Pankaj distributes 4 sweets to each student in his class and has 7 sweets left over. Find a rule for the number of sweets he had in terms of the number of students in his class.

Answer

To find a rule for the number of sweets Pankaj had in terms of the number of students in his class, we can follow these steps:

### Step-by-Step Solution:

1. **Define the Variables:**
- Let \( s \) represent the number of students in the class.

2. **Determine the Number of Sweets Distributed:**
- Pankaj distributes 4 sweets to each student.
- Therefore, the total number of sweets distributed to all students is \( 4s \) (since each of the \( s \) students receives 4 sweets).

3. **Account for the Leftover Sweets:**
- After distributing the sweets, Pankaj has 7 sweets left over.

4. **Formulate the Total Number of Sweets:**
- The total number of sweets Pankaj initially had can be expressed as the sum of the sweets distributed and the sweets left over:
\[ \text{Total sweets} = \text{Sweets distributed} + \text{Sweets left} \]
- Substituting the values we have:
\[ \text{Total sweets} = 4s + 7 \]

5. **Conclusion:**
- Therefore, the rule for the number of sweets Pankaj had in terms of the number of students \( s \) is:
\[ \text{Total sweets} = 4s + 7 \]