There are a few steps in order to get the correct answer.
First you have to look at the facts about what we know:
- her dog is 8 times as much as her cat
- her dog and cat together equal 54 pounds
Now you need to create the equations based on what you know:
Let's say x is her dog and y is her cat
x+y=54 (both dog & cat equal 54)
x=8y (dog is 8 times as much as cat)
Step 1 -
Put in what we know x is for our first equation and solve for y (cat):
8y+y=54 (Combine like terms)
9y=54 (Divide by 9 on each side to get y by itself)
y=6
Now we have solved for y, but we still don't know what x is.
Step 2 -
Put in y into our first equation to solve for x (dog):
x+6=54 (Subtract 6 from both sides to get x by itself)
x=48
Now we have solved for x also. So now we have both x and y.
But to check our work we just have to put the numbers into the original equations:
x+y=54 ----> 48+6=54 (Correct)
x=8y ----> 48=8(6) (Correct)
You now have your final answer. Ali's dog weighs 48 pounds and her cat weighs 6 pounds.
