Mark B. answered • 06/01/16
Tutor
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Software Engineer and Professional Tutor
This is a problem with two variables, number of child tickets and number of adult tickets sold, so we need two equations to solve it.
The first thing we do is write out everything we know and label each thing:
child tickets:
cost = 5.6
number sold = x
adult tickets:
cost = 8.9
number sold = y
the total number of tickets sold is equal to the sum of child and adult tickets:
x + y = 149 (equation 1)
the total cost is equal to the sum of the products of the number of tickets sold and their cost
(cost of child ticket)*(number of child tickets) + (cost of adult ticket)*(number of adult tickets) = 1052.2
5.6x + 8.9y = 1052.2 (equation 2)
now, we line up the two equations and solve them using familiar techniques such as substitution, or we can turn the two linear equations into a matrix. I won't solve it for you, but the hard part is over, it is up to you now.
