Name: Robin
Who is asking: Parent
Level of the question: Elementary
Question: Greta has a vegetable garden. She sells her extra produce at the local Farmer's Market. One Saturday she sold $200 worth of vegetables --peppers, squash, tomatoes and corn.
Greta received the same amount of money for the peppers as she did for the squash.
The tomatoes brought in twice as much as the peppers and squash together.
The money she made from corn was $8 more than she made from the other three kinds of vegetables combined.
How much did Greta receive for each kind of vegetable?
Thank you.
Hi Robin,
Sometimes the hardest part of "guess and check" is deciding where to start. In this problem Greta receive a certain amount for both the peppers and the squash. You add these together and multiply by 2 to get the amount for tomatos, and then you add the pepper, squash and tomatos amount and add 8 to get the amount for corn. The sum of the amount for peppers, squash, tomatos and corn to get $200. What I see from this is that the amount for peppers and squash can't be very large. Let's try $10 for the peppers, $10 for the squash and see what happens.
I would keep track with a table
| peppers | 10 |
|---|---|
| squash | 10 |
| tomatos 2  (peppers + squash) |
40 |
| corn ( peppers + squash + tomatos + 8) |
68 |
| Total | 128 |
This is not enough since she sold $200 worth of vegetables not $128. Thus she must have received more for the peppers and squash. Let's try $20.
| peppers | 10 | 20 |
|---|---|---|
| squash | 10 | 20 |
| tomatos 2 (peppers + squash) |
40 | 80 |
| corn ( peppers + squash + tomatos + 8) |
68 | 128 |
| Total | 128 | 248 |
This time we have too much. so what about $15 for the peppers and $15 for the squash?
| peppers | 10 | 20 | 15 |
|---|---|---|---|
| squash | 10 | 20 | 15 |
| tomatos 2 (peppers + squash) |
40 | 80 | |
| corn ( peppers + squash + tomatos + 8) |
68 | 128 | |
| Total | 128 | 248 |
Can you finish it now?
Penny
