A mother buys a box of sweets. She kept 1/3 of the sweets and divided the rest between her 3 children. The eldest got 8 sweets while the youngest got half as many. If there are 27 pieces of sweets in the box, how many sweets did the second child gets?
How many sweets did the mother keep? ** The mother kept 27 x 1/3 = <<27*1/3=9>>9 pieces of sweets.
How many sweets were divided? ** So there were 27 - 9 = <<27-9=18>>18 sweets that were divided between the 3 children.
How many sweets did the youngest child get? ** The youngest child got 8/2 = <<8/2=4>>4 sweets.
How many sweets did the eldest and youngest get? ** So the eldest and the youngest got a total of 8 + 4 = <<8+4=12>>12 sweets.
How many sweets did the second child get? ** Therefore, the second child gets 18 - 12 = <<18-12=6>>6 sweets.
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