Question

Walmart has cashews that sell for $2 a pound and peanuts that sell for $1.50 a pound. Meijer sells cashews for
$2.50 a pound and peanuts for $1 a pound. Mike paid $26 at Walmart and Jim paid $29 at Meijer for the same
amount of nuts. How many pounds of cashews and peanuts did they buy?

Answers

  1. Let “c” represent the amount of cashews they each bought.
    Let “p” represent the amount of peanuts they each bought.
    Mike: 2c + 1.5p = 26
    Jim: 2.5c + 1 p = 29
    That’s the system you need to solve.  We can do this with substitution.
    Start with Jim:
        2.5c + p = 29
                   p = 29 – 2.5c
    Substitute that into Mike and solve for c:
                      2c + 1.5p = 26    
       2c + 1.5(29 – 2.5c) = 26    
        2c + 43.5 – 3.75c = 26
               -1.75c + 43.5 = 26
                          -1.75c  = – 17.5
                                 c  = 10
    Now substitute that back into Jim’s last equation:
                   p = 29 – 2.5c
                   p = 29 – 2.5(10)
                   p = 29 – 25
                   p = 4
    So they each bought 10 pounds of cashews and 4 pounds of peanuts.

Leave a Comment