Five friends went out to lunch. They each started with the same amount of money, and they each spent $7 . They ended with a combined total of $35 . How much money did each of them have to start?
(a) Write an equation that could be used to answer the question above. First, choose the appropriate form. Then, fill in the blanks with the numbers 5, 7, and 35 . Let x represent the amount (in dollars) each person had to start.
The equation that could be used to answer the question is:
5x - 5(7) = 35
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I apologize for the mistake in my previous response. The correct equation would be:
5x - 5(7) = 35
This equation represents the total amount of money the friends had initially (5x) minus the amount they each spent ($7) multiplied by the number of friends (5), which should equal the combined total they ended with ($35).
To answer this question, we need to find the amount of money each person had to start with. Let's call this amount "x" dollars.
Since there are five friends, each of them starts with the same amount of money, which is "x" dollars. They each spend $7, so after spending, they have x - 7 dollars left.
At the end, the combined total of their remaining money is $35. So we can write the equation:
5 * (x - 7) = 35
Here, we multiply (x - 7) by 5 because there are five friends, and the combined total of their money should be $35.
Now we can solve this equation to find the value of x, which represents the amount each person had to start with.