algebra 1 substituion or elimination math

Question

During a football game, the booster club sells pretzels and popcorn to raise money for new uniforms. They charge $2.50 for a bag of popcorn and $2.00 for a pretzel. The parents collect $35.00 in sales during the game. They sell twice as many bags of popcorn as pretzels. How many bags of popcorn did they sell? How many pretzels did they sell?

Answer 1

Hi Mary, let x represent the number of bags of popcorn and y represent the number of pretzels sold.

Given:

Total sales = $35.00

Cost of a bag of popcorn = $2.50

Cost of a pretzel = $2.00

They sold twice as many bags of popcorn as then sold pretzels.

Equation to solve:

2.5 * x + 2 * y = 35

But x = 2y, substitute for x:

2.5 * 2y + 2y = 35

5y + 2y = 35

7y = 35

y = 5

The parents sold 5 pretzels.

The parents sold 2 * 5, or 10 bags of popcorn.

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