At a student government fundraiser, a notebook costs $7 and a t-shirt costs $12. If the total received for 60 items was $540, how many notebooks were sold?

Question

At a student government fundraiser, a notebook costs $7 and a t-shirt costs $12. If the total received for 60 items was $540, how many notebooks were sold?

Answer 1

Let's call the number of notebooks sold "n" and the number of t-shirts sold "t". We know that the total number of items sold was 60:

n + t = 60

We also know the cost of each item:

7n + 12t = 540

Now we can solve for "n" using substitution. From the first equation, we can solve for "t" in terms of "n":

t = 60 - n

Then we can substitute this expression for "t" in the second equation:

7n + 12(60 - n) = 540

Simplifying this equation gives:

7n + 720 - 12n = 540

-5n = -180

n = 36

So 36 notebooks were sold.