word problem

[girlpower]

Someone help meeeee through this problem?

The Booster's Club held a spaghetti dinner as a fundraiser to buy new uniforms for the team. They sold 300 tickets and $2200. If the price of an adult's was $8.50, and a student's ticket was $3.50, how many of each were sold?

 

[srmichael]

Someone help meeeee through this problem?

The Booster's Club held a spaghetti dinner as a fundraiser to buy new uniforms for the team. They sold 300 tickets and $2200. If the price of an adult's was $8.50, and a student's ticket was $3.50, how many of each were sold?

You have two variables, adult tickets and student tickets, so you need at minimum two equations in order to solve. What have you attempted so far?

 

[girlpower]

Well I think I figured out how to set up the equations would it be like this:

y=300x+2200
y=8.50x+ 3.50

I don't know if I am on the right track? helpppppppppppppppp

 

[srmichael]

Well I think I figured out how to set up the equations would it be like this:

y=300x+2200
y=8.50x+ 3.50

I don't know if I am on the right track? helpppppppppppppppp

Not quite.

Let a = # of adult tickets sold
Let s = # of student tickets sold

300 tickets were sold so: a + s = 300 [equation 1]
Total cost of all tickets sold was $2200 so: 8.5a + 3.5s = 2200 [equation 2]

Does this make sense?

Now try and solve for "a" and "s". Hint, you can solve for either "a" or "s" in equation 1 and substitute into equation 2.

 

[HallsofIvy]

Well I think I figured out how to set up the equations would it be like this:

y=300x+2200
y=8.50x+ 3.50

I don't know if I am on the right track? helpppppppppppppppp

No, you are not. Frankly, it looks like you are just putting numbers together at random- it's impossible to say since you don't say what "x" and "y" mean. The first thing you want to do is state what your variables represent. Since the question asks about the number of adult tickets and student tickets, I suspect you would like to have, say, x= number of adult tickets sold, y= number of student tickets sold. So what should x+ y be? If you sell x adult tickets at $8.50 each, how much money would you raise? If you sold y student tickets at $3.50 each, how much money would you raise? How much would the total be?

 

[ifoxrider]

Not quite.

Let a = # of adult tickets sold
Let s = # of student tickets sold

300 tickets were sold so: a + s = 300 [equation 1]
Total cost of all tickets sold was $2200 so: 8.5a + 3.5s = 2200 [equation 2]

Does this make sense?

Now try and solve for "a" and "s". Hint, you can solve for either "a" or "s" in equation 1 and substitute into equation 2.

Michael is correct. Just use substitution rule to solve for "a" and "s". Sometimes, word problems can be tricky. You need to set out all variables and their relations