Question

Please Please help me with this answer

The cafeteria sold 4 fewer bowls of chicken soup than bowls of tomato soup. They sold 10 bowls of soup in all. How many bowls of tomato soup did the cafeteria sell?

Answer 1

Let's give our numbers names: we'll call the number of bowls of tomato soup t and the number of bowls of chicken soup c.

We know from the question that c is 4 less than t, so we can write that fact as the equation

c = t - 4

We also know that, when we add both of the amounts together, we get 10, so that

c + t = 10

We can then use the first equation to replace c with t - 4:

(t - 4) + t = 10

or, rearranging:

2t - 4 = 10

This means that if we double the number of tomato bowls and subtract 4, we arrive at 10. To find what exactly t is, then, we can go the other way around. If we add 4, we see that 2t = 14, and if we halve 2t, we find that t = 7, so the cafeteria sold 7 bowls of tomato soup.

Checking our work, we see that c = 7 - 4 = 3, and 7 + 3 = 10, so this answer is consistent with what we've been given.

Answer 2

3 bowls of chicken

7 bowls of tomato.

3+7=10

7-3=4