how many people are going on the trip

Question

the number of people,p, on a museum trip includes adults and students. each group of 5 students will have an adult group leader. the formula p = s/5 + s represent s the total number of people going on the trip. the variable s represents the number of students. if there are 55 students,

Answer 1

This is a simple case of substitution.

 

Maybe your confusion is on understanding the equation.

 

p = s/5 + s

 

p represents the total number of people, which is presumably what you are being asked to find.

 

s represents the number of students going, which is conveniently given to you.

 

So what is s/5?

 

Note that the number of adults is 1 per group of 5 students. 5 students would have 1 adult, 10 would have 2 adults, 15 would have 3 adults, and so on. It appears that the number of adults is equal to the number of students divided by 5. Ah! s/5 is the number of adults. 

 

This makes sense, as the total number of people, p, would have to be adults + students.

 

From here, it's easy to plug your known value of students into the given equation to find the total number of people on the trip.