Unsure how to proceed: amount of cement you can prepare for Product A and Product B.

[notmeusee]

Hello everyone. I am taking a course on edx and its math heavy. I am very rusty on math and could use some help. This question comes on the heals of linear equations and quadratics. I am not sure how to break down this question. Anyway, here it is.



You are asked to calculate the amount of cement you can prepare for Product A and Product B. You have 382 lbs of cement and 566 lbs of sand. The following table indicates how much of the cement and how much of the sand you need to make for Product A and Product B.

cement product A = 0.108 product B = 0.353

sand product A = 0.402 product B = 0.158

Calculate how much cement you can prepare for Product A and Product B and best utilize the available inventory of the cement and sand.

I have no idea where to start, any hints?

Thanks

 

[JeffM]

Hello everyone. I am taking a course on edx and its math heavy. I am very rusty on math and could use some help. This question comes on the heals of linear equations and quadratics. I am not sure how to break down this question. Anyway, here it is.



You are asked to calculate the amount of cement you can prepare for Product A and Product B. You have 382 lbs of cement and 566 lbs of sand. The following table indicates how much of the cement and how much of the sand you need to make for Product A and Product B.

cement product A = 0.108 product B = 0.353

sand product A = 0.402 product B = 0.158

Calculate how much cement you can prepare for Product A and Product B and best utilize the available inventory of the cement and sand.

I have no idea where to start, any hints?

Thanks

First, I want to thank you for appearing to have read "read before posting."

What is edx?

It appears that some information is missing. 0.108 WHAT of concrete to do WHAT with product A?

For practical problems, numbers represent things, pounds of concrete, number of oranges, volts of electricity or ratios of things. I suspect that you left out critical words from the problem statement.

 

[ksdhart2]

Well, let's first look only at cement. You're told that each Product A takes 0.108 pounds of cement to make. So, if you wanted to make x amount of Product A, how much cement would you need? Similarly, you're told that each Product B takes 0.353 pounds of cement to make. So, if you wanted to make y amount of Product B, how much cement would you need? And how much cement would you need to make x amount of Product A and y amount of Product B? Finally, you're told that you have 382 pounds of cement available to use. What equation can you now make, based on all this information?

Next, let's look only at sand. You're told that each Product A takes 0.402 pounds of sand to make. So, if you wanted to make x amount of Product A, how much sand would you need? Similarly, you're told that each Product B takes 0.158 pounds of sand to make. So, if you wanted to make y amount of Product B, how much sand would you need? And how much sand would you need to make x amount of Product A and y amount of Product B? Finally, you're told that you have 566 pounds of sand available to use. What equation can you now make, based on all this information?

Given two equations in two variables, solving the system should be simple enough. The answer will most likely end up being a decimal rather than an integer, but you can still work with that. For instance, suppose the solution to the system were that you could make 18.95 Product A and 27.43 Product B. Since you can't make 0.95 or 0.43 of a product, you might try making only 18 Product A and 27 product B. This will mean you have some cement and some sand left over? Do you have enough cement and/or sand to make a new product? Perhaps try making 19 Product A and 27 Product B and see what happens, or try making 18 Product A and 28 Product B and see what happens. Then apply this logic to the actual numbers you found.

 

[sinx]

Hello everyone. I am taking a course on edx and its math heavy. I am very rusty on math and could use some help. This question comes on the heals of linear equations and quadratics. I am not sure how to break down this question. Anyway, here it is.



You are asked to calculate the amount of cement you can prepare for Product A and Product B. You have 382 lbs of cement and 566 lbs of sand. The following table indicates how much of the cement and how much of the sand you need to make for Product A and Product B.

cement product A = 0.108 product B = 0.353

sand product A = 0.402 product B = 0.158

Calculate how much cement you can prepare for Product A and Product B and best utilize the available inventory of the cement and sand.

I have no idea where to start, any hints?

Thanks

you have 2 equations and 2 unknowns.
0.108A+0.353B=382
0.402A+0.158B=566
where, A=units of product A
and B=units of product B