1. 1. Kenneth had x pens at first. He gave away 9 pens and packed the remaining pens into 5 packets. There were 6 pens in each packet. How many pens did Kenneth have at first?

The question requires us to work backwards to find the original amount of pens (which is not known). 

From the question, we know that there are 5 packets and 6 pens in each packet. Thus there are 5 X 6 = 30 pens from the 5 packets.

We add 30 to the 9 pens which he gave away, we find that the total pens Kenneth had at first = 30 + 9 = 39