Question

One day, a person went to a horse racing area. Instead of counting the number of humans an horses, he conuted 74 heads and 196 legs. How many humans and horses were there?
A.
37 humans and 98 horses
B.
24 horses and 50 humans
C.
31 horses and 74 humans
D.
24 humans and 50 horses




99 POINTS

Answer 1

A human has 1 head and 2 legs.
A horse has 1 head and 4 legs.

Let's make two equations from what we know.

There were a total of 74 heads.
There were a total of 196 legs.

Let's call humans 'x' and horses 'y'

The total number of heads were 74.
Humans have 1 head, and so do horses.

Our first equation is:
x + y = 74

There were a total of 196 legs. 
Humans have 2 legs, and horses have 4 legs.

Our second equation is:
2x + 4y = 196

Our two equations are:

x + y = 74
2x + 4y = 196

We need to solve this system of equations to find out how many humans and horses were at this racing event.

Multiply the first equation by 2.

2(x + y) = 2(74)
2x + 2y = 148

Our two equations are:

2x + 2y = 148
2x + 4y = 196

Subtract the first equation from the second equation.

2x - 2x + 2y - 4y = 148 - 196
2y - 4y = 148 - 196
-2y = - 48

Divide both sides by -2

y = 24

That means that there were 24 horses.

We can plug back in y = 24 into our first equation to find out how many humans there were.

x + y = 74
x + 24 = 74
x + 24 - 24 = 74 - 24
x = 50

There were 50 humans.

At the horse racing event, there were 24 horses and 50 humans.

Your final answer is B. 24 horses and 50 humans.

Answer 2

50 +24 =74 heads  50 x 2 = 100 human legs 4 x 24 = 96 horse legs 100 + 96 =196 legs total. So b will be your final answer.