Question

alex stocks up for winter. he buys 36 cans og vegetables. he pays 80 cents per can for tomatoes and 40 cents per can corn for a total of $20.80. How many cans of tomatoes does he buy?

Answer 1

Let x denote the number of cans of tomatoes bought. Then, since 36 cans of vegetables are bought, 36 - x cans of corn were bought. This means that 0.80x were spent on the cans of tomatoes and 0.40(36 - x) were spent on the cans of corn.

Since $20.80 was spent:
0.80x + 0.40(36 - x) = 20.80
0.80x + 14.4 - 0.40x = 20.80
0.40x = 6.40
x = 16.

Therefore, he bought 16 cans of tomatoes.