Question

Troy and Lisa were shopping for school supplies. Each purchased different quantities of the same notebook and thumb drive. Troy bought four notebooks and six thumb drives for $ 96 . Lisa bought two notebooks and four thumb drives for $ 62 . Find the cost of each notebook and each thumb drive.

Answer 1

The cost of each notebook is $3 and the cost of each thumb drive is $14.

Explanation:

In order to solve this question we will attribute variables to the notebook and thumb drive. The price of a notebook we will call "x" and the price of a thumb drive will be "y". We now can create equations that represents the total amount spent by each person on these items. To do that we need to take the amount of each item that was bought and multiply it by it's price.

For Troy:

4*x + 6*y = 96

For Lisa:

2*x + 4*y = 62

We now have a system of equations and we can solve them by isolate one of he variables in one of the equations and using that value on the other. Using the second equation we have:

2*x + 4*y = 62

4*y = 62 - 2*x

y = 15.5 - 0.5*x

Using this expression on the first equation:

4*x + 6*(15.5 - 0.5*x) = 96

4*x + 93 - 3*x = 96

x = 96 - 93 = 3

We can now find the value of y:

y = 15.5 - 0.5*(3) = 14

The cost of each notebook is $3 and the cost of each thumb drive is $14.