Question

Last week , Donnell practiced the piano 3 hours longer than Marcus . Together, Marcus and Donnell practiced the piano 11 hours . For how many hours did each young man practiced the piano

Answer 1

Marcus practiced for 4 hours and Donnell practiced for 7 hours

Explanation:

We can set up this problem as a system of linear functions

We'll use d to represent Donnell and m to represent Marcus

Since Donnell practiced 3 hours more than Marcus, we can represent this as an equation:

d=m+3

And since they both practiced for a combined total of 11 hours, we can represent this an an equation:

d+m=11

We can substitute d=m+3 into d+m=11 and we get:

m+3+m=11

2m+3=11

2m=8

m=4

Now we can substitute m=4 into d+m=11

d+4=11

d=7

Therefore, Donnell practiced for 7 hours and Marcus practiced for 4 hours