kelly takes pam shopping for new clothes. shirts cost $12 and pants cost $21. Pam spends a total of $240 on 14 new items. how many shirts and how many pants did she buy?

Let’s call the amount of pants x and the amount of shirts y.
12y + 21x = 240
y + x = 14 which could be changed to x= 14-y

now you plug it into the first equation
12y + 21 (14 - y) = 240
12y + 294 - 21y = 240

add the similar terms
12y - 21y = 240 - 294
-9y = -54

cancels the minus signs on both sides
9y = 54
y= 6

now you plug y = 6 into the equation x = 14-y
x = 14 - 6
x = 8

Pam bought 8 pants and 6 shirts

the law of definite proportions states samples of a compound will always contain the same proportion of elements by mass. in other words, a given compound will always contain the same elements in the same proportions by mass.the law of multiple proportions states when two elements combine with each other to form more than one compound, then the weights of one element that combine with a fixed weight of the other are in a ratio of small whole numbers.