SOLUTION: A sorority held a bake sale to raise money and sold brownies and chocolate chip cookies. They priced the brownies at $2 and the chocolate chip cookies at $1, raising $250 and sell
Question 1138774: A sorority held a bake sale to raise money and sold brownies and chocolate chip cookies. They priced the brownies at $2 and the chocolate chip cookies at $1, raising $250 and selling 175 items. How many brownies (b) and how many cookies (c) were sold?
(1) the total number of items sold was 175
(2) the total cost of the items, at $2 each for the brownies and $1 each for the cookies, was $250
Solve the equations by whatever method you choose. Elimination certainly looks the easiest, since subtracting the first equation from the second immediately give you the value of b:
So 75 brownies and 100 chocolate chip cookies were sold.
You can get the answer using virtually the same calculations informally, using logical reasoning instead of formal algebra:
(1) If all 175 items were cookies, the total sales would be $175; but the actual total is $250, which is $75 more than that.
(2) Each brownie costs $1 more than each cookie.
(3) Therefore, to make the additional $75, the number of brownies that was sold has to be $75/$1 = 75.
