Question

If Jonathan has 2 times as many dimes as quarters and they have a combined value of 360 cents, how many of each coin does he have?

Answer 1

• 16 dimes
• 8 quarters

Explanation:

When ratios of quantities are given, it is often convenient to consider a group of objects in which the objects have that ratio.

How many groups?

Here, we have 2 dimes for each quarter, so a group of 2 dimes and 1 quarter is a useful group for this problem. Its value is 2×$0.10 +0.25 = $0.45.

The total value of all of the groups is $3.60, so there must be ...

$3.60/($0.45/group) = 8 groups

The 8 groups of coins will have 16 dimes and 8 quarters.