The audio-visual technician for a hotel ordered 4 boxes of microphone cords. There are 12 cords in each box.If there are now a total of 108 cords at the hotel, how many boxes of cords were there before the order?

Your equation to solve is 108-(12×4).
This is 108-48 which is 60.
There were 60 cords at the hotel before the order. Since you need to find the boxes you do 60/12 which is 5.
There were 5 boxes.