Brian purchased a bouquet of 40 flowers for his mother for her birthday. If roses cost $1.50 and tulips cost $1.00, and

Gmat_mission wrote: ↑

Fri Oct 02, 2020 12:50 am

Brian purchased a bouquet of 40 flowers for his mother for her birthday. If roses cost $1.50 and tulips cost $1.00, and he spent $48 in total buying only those two types of flowers, how many tulips were in the bouquet?

A. 12
B. 16
C. 20
D. 24
E. 28

Answer: D

Source: Veritas Prep

Here's an approach that involves 1 variable:

Let t = # of tulips in bouquet
So. 40 - t = # of roses in bouquet [since the total number of flowers is 40, the number of roses must be 40-t]

So, ($1.00)(t) = the total COST of all t tulips
And ($1.50)(40 - t) = the total COST of all 40-t roses

We're told the bouquet costs $48.
So, we can write: ($1.00)(t) + ($1.50)(40 - t) = 48
Expand: t + 60 - 1.5t = 48
Simplify: 60 - 0.5t = 48
Subtract 60 from both sides: -0.5t = -12
Solve: t = 24

Answer: D

Cheers,
Brent

Gmat_mission wrote: ↑

Fri Oct 02, 2020 12:50 am

Brian purchased a bouquet of 40 flowers for his mother for her birthday. If roses cost $1.50 and tulips cost $1.00, and he spent $48 in total buying only those two types of flowers, how many tulips were in the bouquet?

A. 12
B. 16
C. 20
D. 24
E. 28

Answer: D

Solution:

We can let the number of tulips = t and the number of roses = r and create the following equations:

t + r = 40

t = 40 - r

and

1.5r + t = 48

Thus:

1.5r + 40 - r = 48

0.5r = 8

r = 16

So, t = 40 - 16 = 24.

Answer: D