Question

Tickets to a local circus cost $5 for students and $8 for adults. A group of 9 people spent a total of $60. How many adults were in the group?

Answer 1

5

Explanation:

You need to set up and solve a system of linear equations here.

Let s and a represent the number of students and adults respectively.

Then s + a = 9, and s = 9 - a.

Total ticket cost for the adults was ($8/adult)(a)

and for the students ($5/student)(s).

Total cost of the tickets was then ($8/adult)(a) + ($5/student)(s) = $60.

Then our system of linear equations is:

8a + 5s = 60

a + s = 9, or s = 9 - a. Substituting 9 - a for s, we get:

8a + 5(9 - a) = 60.

Then 8a + 45 - 5a = 60, or 3a = 15.

Solving for a, we get a = 5.

Solving for s using s = 9 - a, we get s = 9 - 5, or s = 4.

There were 5 adults in the group (and 4 students).