Answer:
40 dollars
Step-by-step explanation:
We can say
x=amount each friend has to pay
Then, the price of the gift would be 10x because there are 10 friends and each pays x dollars. But since two friends dropped out, it will now become 8x. Also, each of the 8 friends has to pay an extra dollar to go back to the original amount, so 8x+8 is also the price of the gift. We set these two expressions equal to each other (because they both represent the price of the gift) so
10x=8x+8. Using the subtraction property of equality (which says if a=b, then a-c=b-c) we subtract 8x from both sides to get
2x=8. Using the division property of equality (which says if a=b, then a/c=b/c) we divide by 2 on both sides to get x=4. But the question asked how much money they planned to collect, or what was the price of the gift, which is 10x, 10*4=40, 40 dollars.
