Question

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.

Answer 1

 x = number of votes Maya received: this is what you want to solve for 
y = total number of votes cast 

y is given to you = 125,000 

Solve for x by plugging in y: 

x - 62,500 = 0.25(125,000) 
x - 62,500 = 31,250 
x = 93,750 = Number of votes Maya received