Question

Xander goes to the movies with his family. Each family member buys a ticket and two boxes of popcorn. If there are five members of his family, let t represent the cost of a ticket and p represent the cost of a box of popcorn. Write two different expressions that represent the total amount his family spent. Explain how each expression describes the situation in a different way.

Answer 1

t + 2p = cost of 1 family member

since there are 5 family members who bought one ticket and 2 popcorn, we simply multiply the cost of 1 family member by 5.

5(t + 2p) = total cost of the whole family.

We can distribute 5 and the above equation will become.

5t + 2(5)p ⇒ 5t + 10p = total cost of the whole family.