Jasmine bought 2 lb of ham and 1.5 lb of cheese from the deli and paid $7.25 she went back the following week and bought 3 lb of ham and 2 lb of cheese and paid $10.50. if the prices remained the same find the price per pound of the ham and cheese

Given:

Jasmine bought 2 lb of ham and 1.5 lb of cheese from the deli and paid $7.25. She went back the following week and bought 3 lb of ham and 2 lb of cheese and Paid $10.50.

To Find:

The price per pound of the ham and cheese.

The price per pound of ham is $2.5 and the price per pound of cheese is $1.5

Step-by-step explanation:

Let the price per pound of ham be x and price per pound of cheese be y.

In her first trip, she bought 2lb of ham and 1.5lb of cheese and paid $7.25. This can be represented in terms of an equation as

...(1)

For the second trip, we can write

...(2)

We can multiply the first equation by 3 and the second equation by 2 so that the coefficient of x in both is equal.

So we get

...(3)

and

...(4)

We can now subtract equation (4) from (3). We get

which means

Substituting this value of y in (2),

So, the price per pound of ham is $2.5 and the price per pound of cheese is $1.5