Santiago is working at his mom's daycare this summer. His mom has asked him to check out the library book sale to look for books they might be able to use in the daycare. When he gets to the book sale, he sees that board books are \$1.50 and soft cover books are \$0.50. He picks out a variety of books and spends \$20.

Question

Write a two-variable equation to represent this situation.

Let x = number of board books bought
Let y = number of soft-cover books bought

Answer 1

To represent the situation with a two-variable equation, we can use the following information:

• The cost of board books is $1.50 each.
• The cost of softcover books is $0.50 each.
• Santiago spends a total of $20.

Given this, we can write the equation as follows:

\[ 1.5x + 0.5y = 20 \]

In this equation:

• \( x \) represents the number of board books bought.
• \( y \) represents the number of soft-cover books bought.

This equation captures the total cost of the books Santiago purchased.