Question

- Mariah is looking at her bank account and sees that she is in debt $40. She plans to buy dinner

Answer 1

Answer:  5 friends

Note: if Mariah pays for her own meal, then it would drop to 4 friends.

===========================================================

Explanation:

Add up the amount she earns:

30.25+25.75+11 = 67

Now add up the amounts that she's either in debt or that she spends money on. Ignore the dinner portion for now.

40+2 = 42

She earns $67 total and has to spend $42, without including the dinner portion just yet. That means Mariah has 67-42 = 25 dollars left over.

-------------------

Let x be the number of $5 meals she can buy

So she can spend a total of 5x dollars here. Set this equal to 25 (the amount left over) and solve for x.

5x = 25

x = 25/5

x = 5

She can buy dinner for 5 friends. Or if Mariah is paying for herself as well, then she can buy dinner for 4 friends. It's not clear which scenario your teacher is after, but I'll assume the first scenario.