Suppose you are in the market for a new home and are interested in a new housing community under construction in a different city.
The sales representative informs you that there are two floor plans still available, and that there are a total of 56 houses available. Use x to represent floor plan #1 and y to represent floor plan #2. Write an equation that illustrates the situation.
x + y = 56
The question was probably worded in a confusing way for you. They really meant that x is the NUMBER OF HOUSES AVAILABLE with floor plan #1 etc, and y is the number available with plan #2.
That should make the equation rather obvious.
To write an equation that illustrates the situation, we need to consider the information given. Let's break it down:
1. There are two floor plans available: Let's assign the variable x to represent floor plan #1 and y to represent floor plan #2.
2. A total of 56 houses are available: This means that the number of houses built using floor plan #1 (x) plus the number of houses built using floor plan #2 (y) equals 56.
Based on these two pieces of information, we can write an equation:
x + y = 56
This equation represents the number of houses available in the new housing community, where x is the number of houses built with floor plan #1 and y is the number of houses built with floor plan #2.