Summary: Solving Word Problems That Have Decimals
Key Concepts
- Finding the Total Value for Coins of the Same Type
- For coins of the same type, the total value can be found as follows: [latex]\begin{array}{c}\text{number}\cdot \text{value}=\text{total value}\hfill \end{array}[/latex]where number is the number of coins, value is the value of each coin, and total value is the total value of all the coins.
- Solve a Coin Word Problem
- Read the problem. Make sure you understand all the words and ideas, and create a table to organize the information.
- Identify what you are looking for.
- Name what you are looking for. Choose a variable to represent that quantity.
- Use variable expressions to represent the number of each type of coin and write them in the table.
- Multiply the number times the value to get the total value of each type of coin.
- Translate into an equation. Write the equation by adding the total values of all the types of coins.
- Solve the equation using good algebra techniques.
- Check the answer in the problem and make sure it makes sense.
- Answer the question with a complete sentence.
- You may find it helpful to put all the numbers into a table to make sure they check.
Type [latex]\text{Number}[/latex] [latex]\text{Value (\$)}[/latex] [latex]\text{Total Value (\$)}[/latex]
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