Question

At a garden shop, a customer pays $48 for 5 geraniums and 4 lilies. Another customer pays $58 for 4 geraniums and 6 lilies. How do you a system of equations you can use to find the cost x, of one geranium and the cost y, of one lily?

Answer 1

A lily costs $7 and a geranium $4.

Explanation:

From the question we can write two equations. let the number of lilies be l and the number of geraniums be g, then:

`5g+4l=48`
`4g+6l=58`

Multiply the first equation by 4 and the second by 5, the number of lilies in the other, gives:

`20g+16l=192`
`20g+30l=290`

Subtract the first equation from the second gives:

`14l=98` which dividing by 14 gives `l=7`

Substituting the value `l=7` in the first equation gives:

`5g+28=48`

Subtract 20 from both side gives:

`5g=20` divide by 5 gives `g=4`

So, a lily costs $7 and a geranium costs $4.