Question: Liliana has $3.80 in nickels and quarters in her purse. She has 22 more nickels than quarters. How many coins of each type does she have?
Solution:
Liliana has $3.80 in nickels and quarters in her purse.
She has 22 more nickels than quarters.
We first have to establish a system of equations. Since we have two unknown variables, we need to have two equations. The first equations;
let x = number of quarters
x+22 = number of nickels
The total worth of coins = $3.80
The value of a quarter is $0.25 and the value of a nickel is $0.05.
According to the problem:
[tex]0.25x+0.05(x+22)=3.80[/tex]
Applying the distributive property, we get:
[tex]0.25x+0.05x+1.1\text{ = 3.80}[/tex]
this is equivalent to:
[tex]0.25x\text{ +0.05x = 3.80}-1.1[/tex]
this is equivalent to:
[tex]0.3x=2.7[/tex]
Solving for x, we obtain:
[tex]x=\text{ }\frac{2.7}{0.3}=9[/tex]
Thus, we obtain that:
The number of quarters = x = 9
number of nickels = x+22 = 9+22 = 31
So t