At a sports store, Curtis bought some baseball card packs and some T-shirts. The baseball card packs cost $3 each and the T-shirts cost $8 each. If Curtis spent $30, how many baseball card packs and how many T shirts did he buy?

1 Answer
May 16, 2018

#c# = 2 (number of card packs)
#t# = 3 (number of t-shirts)

Explanation:

First, organize your information:

Baseball cards cost $3 each
T-shirts cost $8 each
$30 total

This can be expressed as:

3c + 8t = 30, where c is the number of baseball card packs and t is the number of t-shirts. Now, you find the maximum he can buy of each to equal 30.

So, I'm using the guess and check method:

The highest amount of t-shirts he can buy is 3 because 8 x 3 is 24. So, he has 6 dollars left. Because the card packs are $3, and you've $6, divide 6 by 3 and you get two, the number of card packs he bought. Therefore:

#c# = 2
#t# = 3

Plug this data back in to verify.

3(2) + 8(3) = 30
6 + 24 = 30
30 = 30