MA, Stanford University
Teaching in the San Francisco Bay Area
Alissa is currently a teacher in the San Francisco Bay Area and Brightstorm users love her clear, concise explanations of tough concepts
To solve word problems where someone is selling multiple items, a background knowledge of setting up a system of equations is necessary. Problems where someone is selling multiple items are common on standardized tests such as the ACT and the SAT. These types of problems are similar to rate word problems, work word problems and money word problems..
The types of word problems we're going to look at involves systems of equations relating to word problems where you're buying or selling 2 different types of different items. A lot of times you see like different types of tickets that a school is selling, sometimes you see things like people are selling pies or selling like blue berry pies and cherry pies and you want to find out how much each one costs.
Sometimes you can use the same technique if you're looking at problems that have to do with buses, or vans. How many buses do they need to take 3, 5 students to the museum if each bus hold what, you know what I mean. That's what the kind of problem you're going to be doing using these kinds of techniques. The thing to keep in mind is systems of equations and elimination. What's going to happen is you're going to have 2 different sentences most likely and each sentence is going to turn into a separate equation and then you're going to have to use your elimination solving techniques to solve for one of the variables.
What I'm talking about now will make more sense when you're looking at an actual problem, but when you see a word problem that has to do with buying or selling 2 different types of items or buses and vans which I know I'm a Math teacher I see all these text books, I see lots and lots problems of these type. You're going to want to use systems of equations and elimination.
