Me with this answer the cafeteria sold 4 fewer bowls of chicken soup than bowls of tomato soup. they sold 10 bowls of soup in all. how many bowls of tomato soup did the cafeteria sell?

Let's give our numbers names: we'll call the number of bowls of tomato soup t and the number of bowls of chicken soup c.

We know from the question that c is 4 less than t, so we can write that fact as the equation

c = t - 4

We also know that, when we add both of the amounts together, we get 10, so that

c + t = 10

We can then use the first equation to replace c with t - 4:

(t - 4) + t = 10

or, rearranging:

2t - 4 = 10

This means that if we double the number of tomato bowls and subtract 4, we arrive at 10. To find what exactly t is, then, we can go the other way around. If we add 4, we see that 2t = 14, and if we halve 2t, we find that t = 7, so the cafeteria sold 7 bowls of tomato soup.

Checking our work, we see that c = 7 - 4 = 3, and 7 + 3 = 10, so this answer is consistent with what we've been given.