Question

Serena is making a large meatloaf that contains ground beef and ground pork. The beef is 3.50 per pound and the pork is 2.00 per pound. If she buy 0.75 pounds more pork than beef and spends 12.25 in total, algebraically model this problem and determine how many pounds of each type of meat was brought

Answer 1

Hi there! :)

Answer:

Serena bought 0.75 pounds of pork and about 3.93 pounds of beef.

Step-by-step explanation:

Lets start by laying out the important information we know:

- Beef = $3.50/pound → 1 pound of beef = $3.50

- Pork = $2.00/pound → 1 pound of pork = $2.00

- Buys 0.75 pounds of pork → buys 0.75 of 1 pound of pork

- Buys x pounds of beef

- Spends $15.25 in total → 0.75 pounds of pork + x pounds of beef = $15.25

Once this is done, it's much easier to see what we are dealing with (when it's just a bunch of words it's a lot harder to understand).

Creating your algebraic equation:

Algebraically, your equation needs to be equal to the total amount that Serena spent on pork and beef.

She bought 0.75 of 1 pound of pork, which in other words means that she bought 0.75 of $2.00. The word "of" is the same thing as a multiplication sign. SO, all of this would translate into this: (0.75 × 2)

She then bought beef, but we don't know how much. What we can do is replace the "amount of pounds of beef she bought" with the letter "x". Remember, 1 pound of beef is $3.50. SO, all of this would translate into this: 3.50x

Your algebraic equation should look like this:

(0.75 × 2) + 3.50x = 15.25

Now all you need to do is solve this equation by isolating "x":

(0.75 × 2) + 3.50x = 15.25

1.5 + 3.50x = 15.25

Subtract 1.5 from each side of the equation → 15.25 - 1.5 = 13.75

3.50x = 13.75

Divide each side of the equation by 3.50→ 13.75 ÷ 3.50 = 3.92857143...

x ≈ 3.93

There you go! I really hope this helped, if there's anything just let me know! :)