Question

Flour costs $0.75 per pound and sugar costs $0.50 per pound. An order of flour and sugar weighs 16 pounds and costs $9.
Let’s break this down. You’re trying to write an equation that represents that the total cost of the flour and the sugar in the order is $9. Start by writing an expression to represent the cost of f pounds of flour. Keep in mind that 1 pound of flour costs $0.75, so you can think of this as $0.75 times the number of pounds of flour, f.
Cost
of
flour
+
Cost of sugar
=
Total Cost
+
?
=
?

Answer 1

To represent the cost of flour and sugar in your order, we can start by defining the variables:

- Let \( f \) be the number of pounds of flour.
- Let \( s \) be the number of pounds of sugar.

We know the following:

1. The cost of flour is \( 0.75f \) (since it costs $0.75 per pound).
2. The cost of sugar is \( 0.50s \) (since it costs $0.50 per pound).

Based on this information, we can write the equations:

- The total weight of the flour and sugar is 16 pounds:

\[
f + s = 16
\]

- The total cost of the flour and sugar is $9:

\[
0.75f + 0.50s = 9
\]

Now we have two equations:

1. \( f + s = 16 \)
2. \( 0.75f + 0.50s = 9 \)

You can solve these equations to find the values of \( f \) and \( s \). Would you like to proceed with solving these equations?