Question

A soccer coach bought 16 medium T-shirts and 9 large T-shirts. Each T-shirt was the same price. Onaje and Paula tried to write equivalent expressions to represent the total price of the T-shirts. The expressions they wrote are shown below.

Onaje: 16t + 9t = t(16 + 9) = 25t
Paula 16t + 9t = 16 + 9 + 2t = 25 +2t

Whose expression is correct? Why is the other expression incorrect?

Answer 1

Onaje's is correct. Paula's is incorrect because the "t" is being multiplied not added in the correct equation therefore you can't end up with 2t

Explanation:

Answer 2

Expression written by Onaje is correct.

Explanation:

Soccer coach bought 16 medium T-shirts and 9 large T-shirts.

Each T-shirt cost the same.

If $t is the cost of one T-shirt, then the cost of medium shirt = $16t

Cost of the large T-shirts = $9t

Total cost of the T-shirts = $(16t + 9t) = $25t

Since Onaje wrote the same expression therefore, Onaje is correct.

While Paula wrote the expression showing the total cost as (25 + 2t). Here Paula has not added the costs of large and medium T-shirts correctly.

Which is incorrect.

Therefore, expression written by Onaje is correct.