Q:

Noah’s class held a food drive for the holidays. There are a total of 25 students in his class. On average, each boy and each girl brought in 3 cans of food apiece. If the class brought in a total of 75 cans of food, how many boys and how many girls are in the class?

Accepted Solution

A:
Let
 x: number of boys in the class.
 y: number of girls in the class.
 We must make a system of two equations with two unknowns to determine the number of boys and girls in the class.
 The system that best represents the problem is
 x + y = 25
 3x + 3y = 75
 Note that the equations are linearly dependent. Therefore, the solution is not unique.
 answer:
 the number of girls and boys is obtained through the system of equations:
  x + y = 25
 3x + 3y = 75
 For this case, the system is linearly dependent. (Therefore, I can only give you the answer as to how the problem is solved and not an exact value).