Question

A school is holding a carnival and hopes to raise $500. Child ticket cost $3 and adult tickets cost $5. If the school sells x child tickets and y adult tickets, then the equation 3x + 5y = 500 expresses the fact that the school raised exactly $500 from ticket sales.

1. Solve the equation for x.

2. Explain when it might be helpful to rewrite the equation this way.​

Answer 1

To solve the equation 3x + 5y = 500 for x, we need to isolate x on one side of the equation. First, we can subtract 5y from both sides to get 3x = 500 - 5y. Then, we can divide both sides by 3 to get x = (500 - 5y) / 3.

It might be helpful to rewrite the equation in terms of one variable if we want to solve for one unknown quantity in terms of another. In this case, rewriting the equation in terms of x allows us to see how many child tickets the school needs to sell to raise exactly $500, given any number of adult tickets sold. This can be useful in planning and budgeting for the carnival.

Explanation: