Answer:146 adult tickets were sold.
Explanation:
Let x represent the number of adult tickets that were sold.
Let y represent the number of student tickets that were sold.
A total of 584 tickets were sold for the school play. This means that
x + y = 584 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 1
The number of student tickets sold was three times the number of adult tickets sold. This means that
y = 3x
Substituting y = 3x into equation 1, it becomes
x + 3x = 584
4x = 584
x = 584/4 = 146
y = 3x = 3 × 146
y = 438