Question

Liam's bookstore sold 4 0 4040 notebooks and 2 0 2020 newspapers for a total of $ 1 3 0 $130dollar sign, 130. A day later, the bookstore sold 8 88 notebooks and 4 44 newspapers at the same prices, for a total of $ 2 8 $28dollar sign, 28.

Answer 1

Lets say that:
X = price of each notebook
Y = price of each newspaper

So from the problem statement we can create the following equations:
40 X + 20 Y = 130 --> eqtn 1
8 X + 4 Y = 28 --> eqtn 2

Divide both equations by the lowest coefficient to simplify:
Divide eqtn 1 by 20 => 2 X + Y = 6.5
Divide eqtn 2 by 4=> 2 X + Y = 7

So we can see that although both equations has equal left side, the right side do not match. Hence this problem is impossible to solve.

so the given information describes an impossible situation.