Adult tickets for the school musical sold for $3.50 and student tickets sold for $2.50. three hundred twenty-one tickets for sold all together $937.50. how many of each kind of tickets were sold?
You cannot combine them in only one equation because they represent different things; so you will need two equations. Now before we construct the two equations; lets set up our variables Let a represent adult tickets Let s represent student tickets Now lets look at what we now about these two when thinking about them in money terms: $3.50 per adult $2.50 per student Total made $937.50 Lets show it algebraically: 3.50a + 2.50s=$937.50 When thinking about the tickets in numbers we now the number sold were 321 so algebraically a + s = 321 Two equations; two variables; we can solve a + s = 321 which is the same as s= 321 - a 3.50a + 2.50s = 937.50 Since s = 321-a, we can substitute this into second equation: 3.50a + 2.50(321-a)=937.50 3.50a+802.5-2.50a=937.50 3.50a-2.50a+802.5=937.50 1.00a+802.5=937.50 a=135 Then s=321-135 s=186
