Question

4. Five watermelons and two cantaloupes weigh twenty-seven pounds. If awatermelon weighs four pounds more than a cantaloupe, how much does eachweigh?

Answer 1

Let x be the weight of the cantaloupe. We know that the watermelons weight four pounds more, this means that the weight of the watermelons can be express as:

`x+4`

Now, the weight of two cantaloupes can be express as 2x while the weight of five watermelons can be express as 5(x+4); hence the total weight is express as:

`2x+5(x+4)`

and we know that this is equal to 27 pounds, hence we have the equation:

`2x+5(x+4)=27`

To determine the weight of each of them we solve the equation above for x:

`\begin{gathered} 2x+5(x+4)=27 \\ 2x+5x+20=27 \\ 7x=27-20 \\ 7x=7 \\ x=(7)/(7) \\ x=1 \end{gathered}`

Therefore each cantaloupe weighs one pound and each watermelon weighs 5 pounds.