This is a word problem where you have to create an equation and a solution to. "michaela and aleah play on the same basketball team. in one game michaela scored one fifth of the team's points and aleah scored one tenth's of the teams points. together they scored a total of 42 points. how many points did the team score? " (i might find an equation for it, but i doubt it so if anyone is good with creating equations for word problems ) -matty

You are asked to find the team score, so it is convenient to let a variable represent that value. Let's call it "s", for "score". The problem statement tells you
.. Michaela scored s/5 . . . . . one fifth of the team's points
.. Aleah scored s/10 . . . . . . . one tenth o the team's points
These scores together are (s/5 +s/10) and that amount is 42 points.
.. s/5 +s/10 = 42
.. s(2/10 +1/10) = 42 . . . . . factor out s
.. s(3/10) = 42 . . . . . . . . . . form the sum of the numbers in parentheses
.. s = 42*10/3 = 140 . . . . . multiply by the inverse of the coefficient of s

The team scored 140 points.


Michaela scored 140/5 = 28 points; Aleah scored 140/10 = 14 points.