Thread: Find Number of Original Watermelons

The manager at Cream of the Crop bought a load of watermelons for $180. She priced the melons so that she would make $1.50 profit on each melon. When all but 20 had been sold, the manager had recovered her initial investment. How many did she buy originally?

Hello, fdrhs1984!

I'll baby-step through the reasoning . . .

The manager at Cream of the Crop bought a load of watermelons for $180.
She priced the melons so that she would make $1.50 profit on each melon.
When all but 20 had been sold, the manager had recovered her initial investment.
How many did she buy originally?

She bought watermelons for $180.
The watermelons cost: . dollars each.

For a $1.50 profit, she sold them at: . dollars each.

She sold watermelons and took in $180.

There is the equation! . . . . .180 . . . . That's better!


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Expand: .

Multiply by

Therefore: . She bought 60 watermelons.


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Check

She bought 60 watermelon for $180.
. . They cost: . each.

She charged: . for each watermelon.

Then she sold watermelons
. . and took in: . (her initial investment)

Nailed it!

Soroban really didn't mean to put 800 in his original equation. He was just typing too fast.

There is the equation! . . . .

Should've been 180.

Now he must go stand in the corner.

I like the way you systematically broke down the word problem to find the answer. This has been my lifelong battle in terms of mathematics.

I know Soroban makes very little mistakes (usually typos when he goes too fast).