Question

Olivia spends $4 creating lemonade, and sells the cups for $1 each. Nathan spends $5 creating lemonade and sells the cups for $0.50 eac. How many cups does it take for them to make the same amount of money?

Answer 1

Answer: 2 cups

Step-by-step explanation: Olivia spends 4$ and nothing more. 1$ is her profit that can continue to gain and can be represented as 1x or x. x-4 is the equation to represent her profit. Nathan spends 5$ and 0.50$ is his profit which can be shown as 0.5x. 0.5x-5 is the equation to represent his profit.

Set those two equations equal to each other.  $0.5x-5=x-4$

Isolate x.   $0.5x=-1$

Solve for x.  $x=-2$

Since x represents the amount of cups sold, you cannot have a negative amount of cups sold. Therefore, Olivia and Nathan must sell 2 cups to make the same profit.