story problem

[ninacantrell]

a school photgrapher took pictures of couples at this yerars prom. she charged $3.25 for wallet size and $10.5 for portrait size. Chris and Dan bought a total of 10 pictures for $61.5. how many of each picture did they buy

 

[tkhunny]

Name stuff.

W = # of Wallets sold.
P = # of Portraits sold.

You can now express the information in terms of W and P.

 

[ninacantrell]

I know W=6 and P=4 just don't remember how to write an equation to solve

 

[jsterkel]

Let's try this in small steps. Here is the first step.

W = # of Wallets sold.
P = # of Portraits sold.

Chris and Dan bought a total of 10 pictures...

Now, can you write this in an equation?

Once you have this equation, we'll try the next step.

HINT: For this step, your answer will NOT include the numbers "4" or "6". Even though you think you have the answer, your teacher will probably not like it if you start with the answer and work backwards.

 

[ninacantrell]

W+P=10
but what about the rest

 

[rbcc]

a school photgrapher took pictures of couples at this yerars prom. she charged $3.25 for wallet size and $10.5 for portrait size. Chris and Dan bought a total of 10 pictures for $61.5. how many of each picture did they buy

W
P

1)W+P=10 and that will give you the amount of pictures sold
2) W(3.25)+P(10.5)=61.5 for how much money it costs

so now you have 2 equations and 2 unknowns

from 1) we see that W=10-P
sub that into 2) so (10-P)(3.25) + P(10.5)=61.5
solve for P. I get 6

then take that value and sub it back in to W+P=10 or 3.25W+10.5P and solve for W. I get 4

to check if your solution is correct sub it back in to your original equation

W+P=10
6+4=10

Hope that helps!

 

[ninacantrell]

Thank you!!!! I just wasn't thinking about putting the 2 equations together!

 

[tkhunny]

...just don't remember how to write an equation...

Solving is the easy part. Writing the equations, translating from English, this is the part you are supposed to be learning.