Question

latoya surveyed her friends to see how many pets they own. Her 6 friends have a total of 11 cats and birds. If there are a total of 36 legs how many cats and birds are there?

Answer 1

first we make 2 equations from the given info
let c = cats & b = birds

`c + b = 11`

`4c + 2b = 36`
^ because cats have 4 legs and birds have 2

now next we want to solve for one of the variable in the first equation, then plug it into the second one
so..

`b = 11 - c`
now plug it in

`4c + 22 - 2c = 36`
simplify

`2c = 14`

`c = 7`
now all we have to do is put 7 back into our first equation

`7 + b = 11`

`b = 4`

7 cats
4 birds