Jim bought some potted plants:

Question

Petunias cost $11 per pot and Begonias cost $15 per pot.

Jim bought 19 potted plants in all and spent a total of $225 on the plants.

Which would be a correct statement?

Answer 1

To find a correct statement regarding Jim's purchase of potted plants, we can set up a system of equations based on the information provided.

Let:

• \( p \) represent the number of pots of Petunias
• \( b \) represent the number of pots of Begonias

From the problem, we have the following two equations:

1. The total number of plants: \[ p + b = 19 \]

2. The total cost of the plants: \[ 11p + 15b = 225 \]

Now, we can solve this system of equations.

From the first equation, we can express \( b \) in terms of \( p \): \[ b = 19 - p \]

Now we can substitute \( b \) in the second equation: \[ 11p + 15(19 - p) = 225 \]

Expanding this gives: \[ 11p + 285 - 15p = 225 \]

Combining like terms results in: \[ -4p + 285 = 225 \]

Subtracting 285 from both sides gives: \[ -4p = 225 - 285 \] \[ -4p = -60 \]

Dividing by -4: \[ p = 15 \]

Now substituting \( p \) back into the equation for \( b \): \[ b = 19 - 15 = 4 \]

So, Jim bought 15 pots of Petunias and 4 pots of Begonias.

Now we can check:

• Total number of plants: \( 15 + 4 = 19 \) (correct)
• Total cost: \( 11(15) + 15(4) = 165 + 60 = 225 \) (correct)

Therefore, a correct statement based on the above calculations would be:

"Jim bought 15 pots of Petunias and 4 pots of Begonias."