I’m not sure if this will improve or harm your understanding, but I appear to have taken a slightly different route to the problem. Rather than having two simultaneous equations, I reasoned as follows:
We’re trying to figure out how much the ball costs, so that’s our X
We know the bat is X + 1
So we know (X) + (X+1) = 1.1, becomes 2X +1 = 1.1, 2X = 0.1, X is 5 cents
That seems simpler to me than the two simultaneous equations, even though it’s essentially the same math. I’m also not sure if I would have gotten this correct as the first time I saw this, it had the giveaway clue “Note: the answer is NOT 10.” I suspect I would have come up with 10 without the warning, but I can’t be sure.
I’m not sure if this will improve or harm your understanding, but I appear to have taken a slightly different route to the problem. Rather than having two simultaneous equations, I reasoned as follows:
We’re trying to figure out how much the ball costs, so that’s our X
We know the bat is X + 1
So we know (X) + (X+1) = 1.1, becomes 2X +1 = 1.1, 2X = 0.1, X is 5 cents
That seems simpler to me than the two simultaneous equations, even though it’s essentially the same math. I’m also not sure if I would have gotten this correct as the first time I saw this, it had the giveaway clue “Note: the answer is NOT 10.” I suspect I would have come up with 10 without the warning, but I can’t be sure.