At the movie theatre, child admission is $6.50 and adult admission is $9.80 . On Wednesday, 149 tickets were sold for a total sales of $1179.70 . How many adult tickets were sold that day?

Question

At the movie theatre, child admission is $6.50 and adult admission is $9.80 . On Wednesday, 149 tickets were sold for a total sales of $1179.70 . How many adult tickets were sold that day?

Answer 1

Let's let x represent the NUMBER of child tickets sold and y represent the NUMBER of adult tickets sold. Since there are a total of 149 tickets sold , we can write:

x + y = 149

Then since each child ticket cost $6.50 and each adult ticket cost $9.80, we can represent the total money earned by:

6.50x + 9.80y = $1179.70

To solve these two equations with two unknowns, use substitution.

From the first equation we can write that x = 149 - y

Substitute this expression for y into the second equation:

6.50x + 9.80y = 1179.70

6.50 (149 - y ) + 9.80y = 1179.70

Solve for y using inverses operations, combining like terms, and the distributive property :

968.50 - 6.50y + 9.80y = 1179.70

968.50 + 3.3y = 1179.70

968.50 + 3.3y - 968.50 = 1179.70 - 968.50

3.3y = 211.20

y = 64 adult tickets

As a note, x = 149 - 64 = 85 student tickets