This is the original question:

5x + 3y = 35
3x + 2y = 23
Its a simultaneous equation because youre simultaneously given two equations, and the answers
they come to (35 and 23), so need to use them both to work out what x and y are. The first one just
means 5 multiplied by an unknown number, plus 2 multiplied by an unknown number will equal
35. The second means 3 multiplied by that same first unknown number plus 2 multiplied by the
same second unknown number will equal 23. This should be enough information to work backward
to calculate what X and Y are.
If it was 5x = 10, you can work out that x is 2, because 5 multiplied by two equals 10.
The first thing to do is to get either the x or the y in both equations to be the same value. So look at
the x first. You need to work out the lowest number that both will go into. For example, 5 will go into
5, 10, 15, 20 etc. and 3 will go into 3, 6, 9, 12, 15, 18. So you can see the lowest number they both go
into is 15. An easy way to do this is multiply them both by each other, ie 3 x 5 is 15. (Sometimes this
doesnt work as the two numbers will both go into something smaller, for example 10 and 40
multiplied are 400, but 10 and 40 both go into 40. Just a case of using judgement here).
Next look at the Y. Using the above, you can see that both these numbers go into 6 (2 multiplied by
3). Because 6 is lower than 15 were going to use this as the basis for solving the equation. All we
have done above is work out the lowest possible number that either the x values or the y values will
both go into. We just want the lowest to keep it as simple as possible.
So in the top equation, we had to multiply the 3y by 2 to get it to 6y, so we do that to all other parts
of the equation. So 2 times 5x is 10x, 2 times 3y is 6y, and 2 times 35 is 70. In the bottom equation
we had to multiply the 2y by 3 to get it to 6y, so do the same thing to all parts of that equation. 3
times 3x is 9x, 3 times 2y is 6y, and 3 times 23 is 69.
Once weve done this, the equations look like:
10x + 6y = 70
9x + 6y = 69
So all weve done is times all numbers in the top equation by 2, all in the bottom by 3, to get one of
the values to be the same in both equations. In this example it is 6y. The numbers we have to
multiply by will be different for any equation, but we just need to experiment to work out the lowest
value we can get either all the xs or all the ys to be the same.
So now the 6x is the same in the above two equations, we can ignore this part of the equation, and
see that the difference between the two results is 1 (the difference between 69 and 70, or the = part
of the equation with only numbers).

Do the same to the x part, ie the difference between 10x and 9x is 1x.
So because were ignoring the 6y in both, and looking at only the difference between the x and the =
part, we can say:
1x = 1.
Ie the difference between 10x and 9x is the difference between 70 and 69.
So we can now conclude that x is 1.
Go back to the original equation before we multiplied it to get 6y. Look at the one with smaller
values to begin with, so 3x + 2y = 23. We now know that x is 1. So can say that 3x, (or 3 multiplied by
x) is that same as saying 3 multiplied by 1. The answer to which is 3.
So 3x + 2y = 23 is the same as saying 3 +2y = 23.
So we now know where the 3 in 23 comes from. The remaining 20 have to come from the 2y. So 2y
(or 2 multiplied by y) have to equal the other 20. So it must be 10. 2 multiplied by 10 is 20.
So we think that x is 1 and y is 10.
3x + 2y = 23, we think we have worked out is the same as saying (3 times 1) plus (2 times 10) is equal
to 23. Or 3 + 20 = 23. Which it does.
Try it on the other equation, 5x + 3y = 35. (5 times 1) plus (3 times 10) equals 35. 5 + 30 =35.
You can even try it on the ones we multiplied up to 6y to show it holds true:
9x + 6y = 69, or (9 times 1) plus (six times 10) equals 69, or 9 + 60 =69.
10x + 6x = 70, or (10 times 1) plus (6 times 10) equals 70, or 10 + 60 = 70.
So in summary, all weve done is :
1. Work out the smallest number that either the x or y numbers will go into.
2. In each equation, whatever weve multiplied the y by, we multiply the x and the = number
by too. In this one it was 2 and 3.
3. The numbers that are now the same we ignore (6y). Look at the difference between the
remaining numbers. The difference between the x numbers is gonna be the same as the
difference between the = numbers.
4. This will give us a value for x.
5. We can use this to make sense of the rest of the equation to work out the y number.