My question is: Together, Alan and Marcy handed out 150 parking tickets. If Marcy handed out 6 fewer than 5 times as many tickets as Alan, how many tickets did Alan hand out? Your thoughts:
Let a be the number of tickets Alan hands out and m be the number Marcy hands out. We know that a + m = 150 and m = 5a - 6. Substituting the second equation into the first, we get a + 5a - 6 = 150. Adding 2 to both sides, we get a + 5a = 156. Combining like terms, we get 6a = 156. Dividing both sides by 6, we get a = 26. The final answer: 26.