A sightseeing boat charges $5 for children and $8 for adults. on its first trop of the day, it collected $439 for 71 paying passengers. how many children and how many adults were there?

if 71 paying passengers are all children, they should pay 5 * 71 = $355 in total.

$439 is paid so adults pay $439-$355 = $84 more than money paid by same number of children.

each adult pays $8-$5=$3 more than each child

so there are $84/$3 = 28adults

and 71-28 = 43 children