Question

Medal for anyone who can help!

Three bricklayers and four carpenters earn a total of $910 per day. Ten bricklayers and five carpenters earn a total of $1850 a day.

a) Set up a system of equations to describe the word problem.
b) Is there an advantage to eliminating either variable first?
c) Determine the daily wage of a bricklayer.

Answer 1

let b equal the daily salary of one bricklayer and c for carpenters

3b + 4c = 910
10b + 5c = 1850

the advantage of eliminating c first is that we'll be left with b and we can answer the question of how many bricklayers; they didn't ask about carpenters. also c is easiest to work with since in equation 2 you can isolate it by dividing it entirely by 5.

re-written as:

3b + 4c = 910
2b + c = 370

substituion:
second line: c = 370 - 2b

plug that in the first line:

3b + 4(370 - 2b) = 910

solve for b :)

Answer 2

b=114?

Answer 3

yup :)

Answer 4

sweet! thanks for the help!