Question

1. George is at a craft store and sees two types of decorative beads for a project he is

working on: blue squares and red circles. The craft store sells these beads by the

pound. The blue squares cost $3.50 per pound, and the red circles cost $1.75 per

pound. George wants to buy as many beads as he can with the $21 he has.

(a) Write an equation that describes the relationship of the pounds of blue

square beads and the pounds of red circle beads that George can buy if he

spends all his money.

Answer 1

Let's define the variables:

B = number of blue beads he buys

R = number of red beads he buys

each blue bead costs $3.50, then in the B beads he will pay:

B*$3.50

Each red bead costs $1.75, then in the R beads he will pay:

R*$1.75

If we add those, we get:

B*$3.50 + R*$1.50 as the total cost.

He wants to buy the maximum possible with $21 that he has, then:

B*$3.50 + R*$1.75 = $21

Now if he wants to buy the maximum possible number of beads, then he needs to muy mostly reed ones, because these are cheaper, he could buy:

$21/$1.75 = 12 pounds of red beads, and that is the maximum amount of beads he can buy