Trey has money saved for a school trip. he earns an additional $40 mowing lawns to add to his savings. trey’s parents give him enough money to double the amount he has so far for the trip. now trey has a total of $234 for the trip.
a. write and solve an equation to find the amount trey had saved before mowing lawns.
b. how would this compare with an arithmetic approach to this problem?

A. We let x be the amount of money Trey initially had prior to mowing lawns. After moving lawns, Trey will have,
                                         x + 40
Then, his parents double this amount such that his money will become,
                                 2(x + 40)
This amount is equal to 234. Solving for x,
                                    2(x + 40) = 234     ; x = 77
b. This approach is better than the usual arithmetic in that we just assigned a variable to a certain number and work on with the calculation without having to go through the long process of adding up everything before finally arriving to the final answer.