James had three times as many nickels as dimes. If the total value of his coins was $1.00, how many of each kind of coin did he have?
If he had d dimes, then he had 3d nickels. So, add up the value of each group of coins:
10d + 5(3d) = 100
what is the answer
To solve this problem, we can set up a system of equations. Let's say the number of dimes James had is 'x'.
According to the problem, James had three times as many nickels as dimes. So, the number of nickels he had would be 3*x.
The next step is to convert the number of coins into their values.
The value of a dime is 10 cents, and the value of a nickel is 5 cents.
So, the value of the dimes would be 10*x cents, and the value of the nickels would be 5*(3*x) cents.
The total value of the coins is given as $1.00, which is equal to 100 cents.
Therefore, we can write the equation as:
10*x + 5*(3*x) = 100
Now, we can solve for 'x'.
10*x + 15*x = 100
25*x = 100
x = 100 / 25
x = 4
Now that we have found the value of 'x' as 4, we can substitute it back into our original equation to find the number of nickels:
3*x = 3*4 = 12
Therefore, James had 4 dimes and 12 nickels.