Thanks for your help with the solving of the three equations! Yes, it was a typo. I just finished solving it a long way, solving for the 1st 2 equations then the 2nd and 3rd and plugging in variables...etc. etc. Your way gave the same answer, but quicker, does your way always work???

Answer 1

if there is a solution, it works
the method I used is "elimination"

you have to look for the variable with the "easiest" number combination

It was luck that in the second set of equations we had 5x in both, that made it easy to simply subtract them.
Had the coefficients been different you would have to multiply by suitable numbers to get them the same.

Answer 2

thanks for the clarification!!