Question

You are asked to write a single variable equation to solve a word problem with two unknown amounts. What do you do?

Answer 1

Write the equation!
What is the problem though

Answer 2

often you are told what the total is, say the total of two numbers is 20
you can use two variables and write \(x+y=20\) or you can omit \(y\) and use \(x\) and \(20-x\) instead

Answer 3

i am not really sure that this answers the question, it is just a guess on my part