<human>:  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?
<bot>: 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.
#### 6