Question 495129
I hate word prolems so much, 
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But math is only useful for solving word problems!
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and I can't figure this one out for my life. Here it is. A family buys airline tickets online. Each ticket costs $167. The family buys travel insurance with each ticket that costs $19 per ticket. The Web site charges a fee of $16 for the entire purchase. The family is charged a total of $1132. How many tickets did the family buy. I need a "let" statement. (Let x = ) and an equation. Please help!
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To find out what to let x be, look at the question at the end:
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How many tickets did the family buy
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So you let x be the answer, or

Let x = how many tickets the family bought.

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Each ticket costs $167
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1.  The family bought x tickets, so we multiply $167 by x and get $167x 
for the cost of all x tickets.
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The family buys travel insurance with each ticket that costs $19 per ticket.
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2.  The family bought x tickets, so we multiply $19 by x and get $19x
for the total cost of the insurance.
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The Web site charges a fee of $16 for the entire purchase.
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3.  That's not per ticket so we don't multiply it.

If we add those three figures up from steps 1, 2 and 3, we just put plus 
signs between them, like this

$167x + $19x + $16
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4.  The family is charged a total of $1132.
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So we just set that equal to $1132 like this:

$167x + $19x + $16 = $1132

We drop the dollar marks for convenience:

167x + 19x + 16 = 1132

      186x + 16 = 1132
      
           186x = 1116

              x = 6

So they bought 6 tickets.

Edwin</pre>