SOLUTION: Soybean meal is 16% protein. Cornmeal is 8% protein. How many pounds of EACH should be mixed together in order to get a 320 lb mixture that is 15% protein? PLEASE HELP!!

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Question 265244: Soybean meal is 16% protein. Cornmeal is 8% protein. How many pounds of EACH should be mixed together in order to get a 320 lb mixture that is 15% protein? PLEASE HELP!!
Answer by drk(1908) (Show Source):
You can put this solution on YOUR website!
This is a mixture problem. Here is a table based on the given information:
meals . . . . . . . . % . . . . . . . . . pound . . . . . . . . . . %pounds
soybean. . . . . . .16. . . . . . . . . 320-x. . . . . . . . . . . 5120 - 16x
corn. . . . . . . . . .8. . . . . . . . . . x. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8x
mixture. . . . . . .15. . . . . . . . . .320 . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4800
looking at the third column, we get
5120 - 16x + 8x = 4800
combine like terms to get
5120 - 8x = 4800
subtract 5120 to get
-8x = -320
divide to get
x = 40
So we need 40 pounds of cornmeal and 280 pounds of soybean