Quandaries and Queries
  


Hi i'm Lauren,
Here is a question that secondary (10-12) should be able to answer.......

A crown holds a total of 3080 jewels.
It is made up of diamonds and pearls.
There are 10 times as many diamonds as there are pearls.
How many pearls are there?



Hi Lauren,

Since you don't know the number of diamonds or the number of pearls I would start by assigning letters to both of these quantities.

Let d be the number of diamonds in the crown and p be the number of pearls in the crown. You have two facts. A crown holds a total of 3080 jewels.
There are 10 times as many diamonds as there are pearls.
 Using the quantities d and p these statements are d + p = 3080, and
d = 10 p Since d = 10 p, the first equation can be written 10 p + p = 3080

Solve for p.
Penny


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