The cost of 12 oranges and 7 apples is $5.36. Eight oranges and 5 apples cost $3.68. How do you find the cost of each?

Question

7693 views around the world

You can reuse this answer
Creative Commons License

Answer 1 · 2017-01-18T22:54:42

I found:
Oranges: #$0.26#
Apples: #$0.32#

Let us call the cost of oranges #Or# and apples #Ap#. We can write:

#12Or +7Ap=5.36#
and
#8Or +5Ap=3.68#

we can extract from the first:

#Or=(5.36-7Ap)/12#

we substitute this into the second equation for #Or#:

#cancel(8)^2*(5.36-7Ap)/cancel(12)^3+5Ap=3.68#

solve for #Ap#:

#10.72-14Ap+15Ap=11.04#

#Ap=0.32#

use this value bach into the first equation:

#Or=(5.36-7Ap)/12=(5.36-7*0.32)/12=0.26#