Question

Short sleeve t-shirts cost $10 and long sleeve t-shirts cost $15. If the t-shirt shop made $485 selling 38 total t-shirts, how many of each type of shirt did they sell?

Answer 1

Answer:

The t-shirt shop sold 21 long sleeve shirts and 17 short sleeve shirts.

Step-by-step explanation:

To solve this problem, we should create a system of equations.  Let's let short sleeve t-shirts be represented by the variable s and long sleeve t-shirts be represented by the variable l.  

We know that the shop sold 38 total shirts, or in other words, the amount of long sleeve and short sleeve shirts combined is 38.  If we write this as an equation, we get: s + l = 38.

We can make another equation with the prices of the shirts.  If we take each type of shirt and multiply each price by the number sold and add them together, we should get the shop's total profits.  Represented as an equation, this is: 10s + 15l = 485.

Now that we have two equations, we should try to solve the system.  In this case, it is easiest to use substitution, so we are going to rewrite the first equation in terms of one variable.

s + l = 38

s = 38 - l

If we substitute this equivalent value for the variable s into the second equation, we get:

10s + 15l = 485

10(38 - l) + 15l = 485

Now we have an equation that only has one variable, so we can simplify both sides and then isolate the variable.

380 - 10l + 15l = 485

380 + 5l = 485

5l = 105

l = 21

Now, we can substitute this value for l back into the first equation to solve for the variable s.

s + l = 38

s + 21 = 38

s = 17

Therefore, the t-shirt shop sold 21 long sleeve shirts and 17 short sleeve shirts.

Hope this helps!