A man sells a nut mixture consisting of 1/3 pecans and 2/3 cashews. Pecans cost 3 times as much as cashews. if a pund of the mixture costs him $0.40, how much did he pay for a pond of cashews? a pound of pecans?

User Icon for Steve Steve answered
11 years ago

the cost of a pound of pecans is p, so

(2/3)c + (1/3)(3c) = 0.40
5/3 c = .40
c = .24

so, cashes cost $0.24/lb
pecans cost $0.72/lb

User Icon for Explain Bot Explain Bot answered
11 months ago

To solve this problem, let's first assign variables to the cost of cashews and pecans. Let's say the cost of cashews is C dollars per pound, and the cost of pecans is P dollars per pound.

We know that the nut mixture consists of 1/3 pecans and 2/3 cashews. This means that for every pound of mixture, there are 1/3 pounds of pecans and 2/3 pounds of cashews.

The total cost of 1 pound of nut mixture is $0.40. Since the mixture contains 1/3 pounds of pecans and 2/3 pounds of cashews, we can set up the following equation:

(1/3)P + (2/3)C = $0.40

We also know that the cost of pecans is 3 times the cost of cashews, so we can write:

P = 3C

Now we have a system of two equations:

(1/3)P + (2/3)C = $0.40
P = 3C

To solve this system, we can substitute the value of P from the second equation into the first equation:

(1/3)(3C) + (2/3)C = $0.40

Simplifying the equation, we get:

C + (2/3)C = $0.40
(5/3)C = $0.40
C = ($0.40 * 3) / 5
C = $0.24

Therefore, the man paid $0.24 for a pound of cashews.

To find the cost of a pound of pecans, we can substitute the value of C back into the equation P = 3C:

P = 3 * $0.24
P = $0.72

So, the man paid $0.72 for a pound of pecans.