A bag of smarties cost $7.00 and a bag of dum sums cost $8.50. She spent $60.50 in all. How many bags of each did she get

Question

Smarties- $7.00 dum dums-$8.50 $60.50 in all. What equation do I write.

Answer 1

If you want to express this with equations, you should also have been given the total number of bags of candy that she purchased. For example, if she purchased 8 bags of candy, you would have:

 

s = # of smarties bags

d = # of dum dum bags

 

s + d = 8

7s + 8.5d = 60.50

 

s = 8 - d

7 * (8-d) + 8.5d = 60.50

56 - 7d + 8.5d = 60.50

56 + 1.5d = 60.50

1.5d = 60.50 - 56

1.5d = 4.5

d = 3

 

If d = 3, then s = 8 - d or s = 5

 

Check:

 

5 * 7 = 35

3 * 8.5 = 25.5

35 + 25.5 = 60.5

Answer 2

We miss the total number of bags she bought. With this information we can solve the problem like this:

 

x is the number of bag of smarties,

y is the number of bag of dum sums.

 

x + y = total nimber of bags bought

7x + 8.5y = 60.50

 

Then replace x by total number of bags - y in the second equation and solve