Question

A school dance sold 2 types of tickets: one for freshman/sophomores (9th/10th graders), and one for juniors/seniors (11th/12th graders). The freshman/sophomore tickets cost $8, and the junior/senior tickets cost $6. They sold a combined total of 525 tickets, and earned a total of $4600. How many tickets of each type did the school sell? Write and show all algebra work; you cannot use graphing to solve this.

Answer 1

9514 1404 393

Answer:

• freshman/sophomore: 725
• junior/senior: -200

Explanation:

It is convenient to let a variable represent the number of the highest-price tickets sold. We'll use x for that. Then the number of lower-price tickets sold is 525 -x and the total revenue is ...

8x +6(525 -x) = 4600

2x = 1450 . . . . . . . . . . . . subtract 3150

x = 725

525 -x = -200

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The school sold 725 freshman/sophomore tickets and -200 junior/senior tickets.

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Comment on the question

There is apparently an error in the question somewhere. The average revenue per ticket is ...

$4600/525 ≈ $8.76

You cannot sell $6 and $8 tickets and earn more than $8 per ticket sold. (Average revenue must be between $6 and $8 per ticket.)

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If we assume a typo in revenue, and that it should be $3600, then the sales will be 225 freshman tickets and 300 senior tickets.