Answer
The person buys 5 tickets.
Work Step by Step
We will call x the number of tickets bought. Thus, we get the following equation $45.5x +14.99 =242.49$. Note that we set the total payment equal to its to compnoents—the 15 dollar charge and the total number of tickets bought, which is multiplied by 45.50 because this is the price per ticket (remember, each ticket costs 37 dollars plus an 8.50 service charge for a total of 45.50 per ticket). We now need to get the x alone. Thus, we cancel out the addition by subtracting 14.99 on both sides. This leaves us with the equation 227.5=45.5x. In order to cancel out multiplication, we use division, so we divide both sides of the equation by 45.5 to get that x=5. Thus, the person buys 5 tickets.
