169k views
2 votes
Sarah took the advertising department from her company on a round trip to meet with a potential client. Including Sarah a total of 15 people took the trip. She was able to purchase coach tickets for ​$220 and first class tickets for ​$910. She used her total budget for airfare for the​ trip, which was ​$8130. How many first class tickets did she​ buy? How many coach tickets did she​ buy?

1 Answer

6 votes
Let's use x to represent the number of coach tickets that Sarah purchased, and y to represent the number of first class tickets. Since a total of 15 people took the trip, we know that:

x + y + 1 = 15

where the extra 1 represents Sarah.

We also know that Sarah used her entire budget of $8130 for airfare, so we can write an equation for the cost of the tickets:

220x + 910y = 8130

Now we have a system of two equations with two variables. We can solve for x and y using substitution or elimination.

Using substitution, we can solve for x in terms of y from the first equation:

x + y + 1 = 15 => x = 14 - y

Substituting this expression for x into the second equation, we get:

220(14 - y) + 910y = 8130

3080 - 220y + 910y = 8130

690y = 5050

y = 7.319 (rounded to three decimal places)

Since we cannot purchase a fractional number of tickets, we need to round y to the nearest whole number. Since y represents the number of first class tickets, Sarah must have purchased either 7 or 8 first class tickets.

If she purchased 7 first class tickets, then the number of coach tickets would be:

x = 14 - y = 14 - 7 = 7

This would result in a total cost of:

220(7) + 910(7) = 6440

But since Sarah's budget was $8130, she must have purchased more first class tickets than this.

If she purchased 8 first class tickets, then the number of coach tickets would be:

x = 14 - y = 14 - 8 = 6

This would result in a total cost of:

220(6) + 910(8) = 7280

This is less than Sarah's budget of $8130, so it is a possible solution.

Therefore, Sarah purchased 8 first class tickets and 6 coach tickets.
User NULLchimp
by
8.3k points