Question

The class is selling food at the school fair. Pretzels cost $1.50, and bottles of water cost $1.00. The class sold a total of 107 items altogether and collected $128. Choose the definition of the variables that could be used to write the system of equations.

a) Let x represent the number of pretzels and y represent the number of bottles of water.
b) Let p represent the number of pretzels and w represent the number of water bottles.
c) Let $1.50x$ represent the cost of pretzels and $1.00y$ represent the cost of water bottles.
d) Let s represent the total number of items sold and c represent the total collected.

Answer 1

The correct variables for the system of equations are x and y, representing the number of pretzels and bottles of water sold.

Step-by-step explanation:

The correct definition of the variables that could be used to write the system of equations for the given scenario is option a) Let x represent the number of pretzels and y represent the number of bottles of water.

This is because the question asks for the number of pretzels and bottles of water sold, so x and y are the appropriate variables to represent these quantities.

The system of equations can be written as:

x + y = 107 (equation 1)

1.5x + 1y = 128 (equation 2)