SOLUTION: this is a word problem that has to be broke into mathematical terms and solved: officer reid wrote up 9 more tickets than officer smith did. together they wrote up 35 tickets. how

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Question 107297: this is a word problem that has to be broke into mathematical terms and solved: officer reid wrote up 9 more tickets than officer smith did. together they wrote up 35 tickets. how many tickets did officer reid write? i know the answer from the back of my book i just dont understand how they got that answer.
Answer by Earlsdon(6294) (Show Source):
You can put this solution on YOUR website!
You can start by assigning variables to the unknown quantities.
Let R = the number of tickets written by officer Reid and S = the number of tickets written by officer Smith.
From the problem description, you can write:
1) R = S+9 "Officer Reid wrote up 9 more tickests than officer Smith did."
2) R+S = 35 "Together, they wrote up 35 tickets."
Now substitute the R = S+9 from equation 1) into equation 2) and solve for S.
2a) (S+9)+S = 35 Simplify.
2S+9 = 35 Subtract 9 from both sides.
2S = 26 Divide both sides by 2.
S = 13 Officer Smith wrote 13 tickets.
R = S+9
R = 13+9
R = 22 Officer Reid wrote 22 tickets.