Question 176439
Irving has 10% as many quarters as nickels.  If Irving has $5.25 in quarters and nickels, how many nickels does he have?  

I first tried to add .10(.25) and .05x (because I don't know how many nickels, but that does not make sense when I try to solve it. I guess I don't understand what "10% as many" means. Does he have 10% more quarters? or 10% out of 100% are quarters? Either way, I can't figure out even how to set this problem up!

Thanks for your help!


10% as many quarters means that he has 10% less quarters than nickels. This means that if hypothetically he has 50 nickels, then he would have 5 (10% of 50)quarters.


Let amount of nickels   =  n

Then he has 10% of n  =  .1n in quarters

Since he has $5.25 in nickels and quarters, then we get:

.05(n) + .25(.1n) = 5.25

.05n  +  .025n  =  5.25

.075n  =  5.25

n  =  5.25/.075

n  =  70

He has 70 nickels