SOLUTION: I know the answer for this question is $4 but don't know how they arrived at that answer. Can you help me through this? Lola, Michael and Joaquin each want to buy a sundae. But

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Question 1117451: I know the answer for this question is $4 but don't know how they arrived at that answer. Can you help me through this?
Lola, Michael and Joaquin each want to buy a sundae.
But Lola is 4 dollars short, Michael is 3 dollars short, and Joaquin is 1 dollar short. Combined, they have exactly enough money to buy one sundae. How many dollars does one sundae cost?
Thanks in advance.
Found 2 solutions by Edwin McCravy, solver91311:
Answer by Edwin McCravy(20056) About Me  (Show Source):
You can put this solution on YOUR website!
Lola, Michael and Joaquin each want to buy a sundae.
Let the sundae (one sundae) cost N dollars

But Lola is 4 dollars short
So Lola has N-4 dollars.

Michael is 3 dollars short, 
So Michael has N-3 dollars.

and Joaquin is 1 dollar short. 
So Joaquin has N-1 dollars

Combined, they have exactly enough money to buy one sundae. 
So the sum of the amounts of money they have equals N

(N-4)+(N-3)+(N-1) = N
      N-4+N-3+N-1 = N
             3N-8 = N
               2N = 8
                N = 4
Edwin

Answer by solver91311(24713) About Me  (Show Source):
You can put this solution on YOUR website!


Let represent the cost of one sundae in dollars. Lola is $4 short, so she must have dollars. Likewise, Michael has dollars and Joaquin has . Since together they have exactly enough to buy one sundae, namely dollars, we can write:



Solve for

John

My calculator said it, I believe it, that settles it