Final answer:
To represent the scenario where there are 10 coins in the student's pocket with a value of 0.85, and the coins are either nickels or dimes, we can use a system of linear equations.
Step-by-step explanation:
To represent the scenario where there are 10 coins in the student's pocket with a value of 0.85, and the coins are either nickels or dimes, we can use a system of linear equations.
Let x represent the number of nickels and y represent the number of dimes.
The value of the nickels (5 cents) multiplied by the number of nickels (x) plus the value of the dimes (10 cents) multiplied by the number of dimes (y) should equal to 0.85, as it represents the total value of the coins in the pocket.
This can be represented by the system of equations:
x + y = 10 (number of coins)
0.05x + 0.10y = 0.85 (total value of coins)