total of 691 tickets were sold for the school play. There were 59 fewer student tickets sold than adult tickets. How many adult tickets were sold? 

Let's assign variables to the different groups so we can later solve this system with either substitution or elimination. 

Student tickets = s

adult tickets = a 

So, translate the english into math.

Since a total of 691 tickets were sold, we can derive the equation:

Then, there were 59 fewer students sold, that means more adult tickets were sold. 

Now put these in a system of equations and solve. 

For this system, I would suggest substitution because there is already an isolated variable. 

We now know that 375 adult tickets were sold. 

316 student tickets were sold.