How much is one sweater

Question

1 sweater and 4 shirts cost 54$

Answer 1

Hello, Leah,

There isn't enough information to know the exact answer. You have two unknowns (sweater and shirt prices), but only one equation. There are many possible answers.

If: Price Bought Total

Shirts are 14 1 14

Sweaters are 8 5 40

Total 54

Or:

If: Price Bought Total

Shirts are 4 4 16

Sweaters are 19 2 38

Total 54

And there are MANY other combinations that could be invented to bring the total to $54. A second relationship is needed. For example, "Shirts cost half as much as sweaters." We would have a second equation such as Shirt = 1/2 Sweater

Now we have two equations, and two unknowns. Let X = number of Shirts, Y = number of Sweaters, PSt = Price of a shirt, and PSw is the price of a sweater. Then:

54 = X*PSt + Y*PSw

But we know that 1PSt = 0.5PSw (A shirt is half the price of a sweater)

Substitute:

54 = X*0.5PSw + Y*PSw

54 = PSw*(0.5X +Y)

We still have two unknowns, but we can create a table of values to see which one makes $54. We still need the actual prices to even start, however.

In summary, a lot more information is needed to answer the question.