Question

Siti bought a number of blouses at an average price of $12. She decided to buy 3 more dresses which cost $18 each. The average price of all her blouses and dresses became $14. Find the total number of dresses and blouses she bought.

Answer 1

Siti initially bought 9 blouses at an average cost of $12 each and then bought 3 dresses at $18 each, bringing the average cost of all items to $14. Hence, Siti bought a total of 12 items.

Step-by-step explanation:

Siti initially bought a number of blouses at an average price of $12 before deciding to purchase 3 more dresses, which cost $18 each. With these additional dresses, the new average cost of all the items combined became $14. To calculate how many blouses she originally bought, let's use the following algebraic approach:

Let B be the number of blouses Siti bought originally.

Average cost of blouses = Total cost of blouses/B = $12
Therefore, Total cost of blouses = $12B (1)

She bought 3 dresses for $18 each, totaling $18*3 = $54 (2)

Now, the total cost for blouses and dresses is the sum of (1) and (2), which gives us $12B + $54.
The total number of items is B + 3.

The new average cost of all items together being $14 allows us to set up the equation $14(B + 3) = $12B + $54.
By solving for B, we get B = 9.

Therefore, Siti bought 9 blouses and 3 dresses, totaling 12 items.