If there are 9 students total and the ratio is 2:7 for walk home to ride bus then the answer would you would divide 2 from 7 which can be written as 7/2 then you would get your answer. Plus if the question says how many times the number... that means division:).
So first of all you need to plug in the x=8 into both equations which will make the first equation be equals to 44 than plug in the x into the second equation and you will get 4 over -1 so in my opinion it should be b=44
