Question

Natalie is planning a summer pool party and needs some fresh fruit. A local fruit stand has

watermelons for 5 each and strawberries for 3 per pint. Natalie purchased 13 items and
spent 45 on fruit snacks, how much of each fruit did she buy?

Answer 1

Natalie bought 3 watermelons and 10 pints of strawberries for her summer pool party. She spent a total of $45 on the fruits, purchasing 13 items in total.

Step-by-step explanation:

Natalie is planning a summer pool party and is trying to determine how much of each fruit she bought with her budget. The problem we need to solve is a system of linear equations, which is common in algebra.

We know the following:

• Let the number of watermelons be w.
• Let the number of pints of strawberries be s.
• Each watermelon costs $5 and each pint of strawberries costs $3.
• Natalie bought a total of 13 items.
• She spent a total of $45.

We can write two equations to solve for w and s:

1. w + s = 13 (the total number of items)
2. 5w + 3s = 45 (the total amount spent)

To solve the system, we can use the method of substitution or elimination. Let's use substitution in this case:

From equation 1, we can express w as 13 - s. We can substitute this into equation 2, which gives us:

5(13 - s) + 3s = 45

Now we can solve for s:

65 - 5s + 3s = 45

2s = 20
s = 10

Now that we know Natalie bought 10 pints of strawberries, we can find out how many watermelons she bought by substituting s into equation 1:

w + 10 = 13
w = 3

Therefore, Natalie bought 3 watermelons and 10 pints of strawberries.