Question

Period 5 is gearing up for a class ice cream party. Meghan plans to arrange the party and understands that ice cream cones cost $1.10 and sundaes cost $2.35. On the day of the party the receipt shows a total of 172 cones and sundaes were $294.20. How many cones were sold?

Answer 1

Answer: 88 cones.

Explanation:

We know that:

price of a cone = $1.10

price of a sundae = $2.35

A total of 172 cones and sundaes were sold for $294.20

Then we can define two variables:

C = number of cones sold

S = number of sundaes sold.

C + S = 172 (the total number of sundaes and cones sold is 172)

C*$1.10 + S*$2.35 = $294.20 (that is how much the won).

Then we have the system of equations:

C + S = 172

C*$1.10 + S*$2.35 = $294.20

And we want to find how many cones were sold.

To solve this, we first need to isolate the other variable, S, in one of the equations, i will isolate S in the first equation:

S = 172 - C

Now, let's replace this in the second equation:

C*$1.10 + (172 - C)*$2.35 = $294.20

Now we can solve this for C, and find the number of cones that were sold.

C*$1.10 + $404.20 - C*$2.35 = $294.20

C*($1.10 - $2.35) = $294.20 - $404.20

-C*1.25 = -110

C = 110/1.25 = 88

88 cones were sold.