Bot use proportional relationships to solve this mixture problem. Wendell is making a fruit salad consisting of melon and strawberry. Melon costs $0.45 per pound and strawberries cost $1.65 per pound. He wants his fruit salad to contain 4 times as much melon as strawberries. If Wendell has $10.50, how many whole pounds of melon and how many whole pounds of strawberries should he buy for his fruit salad?

Question

Bot use proportional relationships to solve this mixture problem. Wendell is making a fruit salad consisting of melon and strawberry. Melon costs $0.45 per pound and strawberries cost $1.65 per pound. He wants his fruit salad to contain 4 times as much melon as strawberries. If Wendell has $10.50, how many whole pounds of melon and how many whole pounds of strawberries should he buy for his fruit salad?

Answer 1

Let's assume that Wendell buys $x worth of strawberries and $4x worth of melon.

Since strawberries cost $1.65 per pound and Wendell buys $x worth of strawberries, he can buy $x / $1.65 = x/1.65 pounds of strawberries.

Similarly, since melon costs $0.45 per pound and Wendell buys $4x worth of melon, he can buy $4x / $0.45 = 8.89 * x pounds of melon.

If Wendell wants to spend a total of $10.50, then it must be true that $x + $4x = $10.50.

Simplifying the equation, we get 5x = 10.50.

Dividing both sides by 5, we get x = 10.50 / 5 = 2.10.

Therefore, Wendell should buy 2 pounds of strawberries and 8 pounds of melon for his fruit salad.