System of equations word problems

Question

during the 2008-2009 men's basketball season, UConn's hasheem Thabeet and Jeff Adrien had a total of 746 rebounds. Jeff had 30 fewer rebounds than haseem. How many rebounds did hasheem and jeff each have during the season?

Answer 1

Let J be the number of rebounds by Jeff and let H be the number of rebounds by Hasheem.

Jeff had 30 less rebounds than Hasheem so J=H-30.

Together they had 746 rebounds, therefore (H-30)+H=746.

2H-30=746

2H=776

H=388

So Hasheem had 388 rebounds and Jeff had 30 less, which comes to 358.

388+358=746 so our answer is correct.