Question

A college student needs 5 classes and a total of 12 credits in order to complete his degree. The college offers 2 credit classes and 3 credit classes. How many 2-credit and 3-credit classes are there?

Answer 1

The student requires three 2-credit classes and two 3-credit classes to complete the degree with a total of 12 credits. This is determined by setting up a system of equations and solving for the number of classes.

Step-by-step explanation:

To solve the problem of determining the number of 2-credit and 3-credit classes a student needs to complete his degree with a total of 12 credits, we set up a system of equations. Let x be the number of 2-credit classes and y be the number of 3-credit classes. The student needs 5 classes in total, so we have:

x + y = 5 (1)

Each 2-credit class and 3-credit class contribute to the total number of 12 credits required, so we can also set up the following equation:

2x + 3y = 12 (2)

Now we can solve this system of equations. Multiplying equation (1) by 2 gives us:

2x + 2y = 10 (3)

Subtracting equation (3) from equation (2) gives us:

y = 2

Plugging y = 2 into equation (1) gives us x = 3. So the student needs three 2-credit classes and two 3-credit classes to complete the degree.