Question

At a local grocery store, apples cost $0.50 each and bananas cost $0.30 each. The expression 0.50x + 0.30y can be used to find the cost of buying some apples and bananas. 1. Interpret what the x and y represent in context. 2. What does each term represent? 3. What do each of the coefficients represent?

Answer 1

(1) x represents the number of apples bought, y represents the number of bananas.

(2) each term represents the total costs of a given fruit, so 0.50x is the total cost of apples and 0.30y is total cost of bananas.

(3) The coefficients are unit prices: coefficient 0.50 is the price of 1 apple, 0.30 is the price of 1 banana.