someone please help I am confused. Maya and Sally were the two finalists in a singing competition. The person with the most votes from the audience was chosen as the winner. Sally received 25% of the total votes and lost by 62,500 votes. No person in the audience was allowed to vote more than once. The equation below represents this situation, where y is the total number of votes cast and x is the number of votes Maya received:
x − 62,500 = 0.25y

If a total of 125,000 people voted, how many votes did Maya receive? Do not enter comma for placeholder values.

Question

someone please help I am confused.    Maya and Sally were the two finalists in a singing competition. The person with the most votes from the audience was chosen as the winner. Sally received 25% of the total votes and lost by 62,500 votes. No person in the audience was allowed to vote more than once. The equation below represents this situation, where y is the total number of votes cast and x is the number of votes Maya received:
x − 62,500 = 0.25y

If a total of 125,000 people voted, how many votes did Maya receive? Do not enter comma for placeholder values.

Mercury · Answer

they give you x − 62,500 = 0.25y, where x = the votes Maya got and y = the total number of votes cast

so if 125,000 votes were cast, then y = 125,000, plug in and solve for x