The equation for this question. a company bought 34 boxes of cookies for a total of $130. the boxes of cookies cost either $3 per box (for one brand) or $5 per box (for a different brand.) how many of the $3 boxes did the company buy?

We can solve this by setting up a system of equations. We will use x for the $3 boxes and y for the $5 boxes:

x+y=34
3x+5y=130

We can use the elimination method by multiplying the first equation by 3:

3x+3y=102
3x+5y=130

0x-2y=-28
y=14

We can then plug this number back into one of the original equations to solve for x:

x+14=34
x=20

We can check these answers by plugging them into the equations:

20+14=34
34=34

(3)(20)+(5)(14)=130
60+70=130
130=130

Therefore, there are 20 of the $3 boxes, since we originally said that x would be the $3 boxes.