At the city museum child admission is $6.50 and adult admission is $9.80. on Tuesday 142 tickets were sold for a total sale of $1140.80. how many child tickets were sold that day?

Answer 1

Let C be number of child tickets and A be number of Adult tickets

Now, like most coin, cost, or earnings problems, you can make a number balance and a money balance and get two equation for the two unknowns defined above:

Number of tickets C + A = 142

Total Paid for tickets: C*6.5 + A*9.8 = 1140.8

Because we want child tickets sold, we will eliminate A by substitution. A = 142 - C from 1st equation

Substitute for A: 6.5*C + 9.8*(142-C) = 1140.8

Now we can solve for C (distribute and isolate C on the left.

-3.3*C = 1140.8 - 9.8*142

C = 76 child tickets

Hope that helps.

Answer 2

Let x = the number of children's admissions.

(142-x) = the number of adult tickets

cost of the child tickets + cost of the adult tickets = total cost

6.50(x)+9.80(142-x) = 1140.80

Can you solve the equation for x?