Answer:
C) 24 adults
Step-by-step explanation:
Let A be the number of adults and C be the number of children.
If a ticket costs $8 per adult, we can express this as 8A
If a ticket costs $5 per child, we can express this as 5C
Combining the two expressions, we can write 8A+5C=272 as our first equation since the total amount of money collected is $272.
Our second equation would be A+C=40 since there are 40 people.
Now, we can take the second equation and write it as C=40-A so we can substitute the value of C into the first equation as 40-A so we only have to deal with one variable, the amount of adults that went to the theater.
The first equation now becomes 8A+5(40-A)=272 and is much easier to solve:
8A+5(40-A)=272
8A+200-5A=272
3A+200=272
3A=72
A=24
Therefore, there are 24 adults
