Question

Sofia has a collection of nickels, dimes, and quarters. She has two fewer nickels than quarters, and the number of dimes is one more than twice the number of quarters. If her total amount of money is $3.50, how many nickels are in her collection?

Answer 1

She has to have 2x+1 for dimes compared to quarters meaning she has 15 dimes making 1.50 and 7 quarters making 1.75 so left over would he 7-2=5 she has 5 nickels

Answer 2

Let X represent the number of nickels Sofia has.

Sofia has (X + 2) number of quarters.

Sofia has (2X + 5) number of dimes.

Since a quarter equals 5 nickels, (X + 2) quarters equals (5X + 10) nickels.

A dime equals 2 nickels, so (2X + 5) dimes equals (4X + 10) nickels.

Therefore, Sofia has (10X + 20) nickels worth, which equals 350¢.

Therefore, X = 5, and Sofia has 5 nickels.