1. How would you come up with the decimal point in this problem?

2. How does the author determine what the first equation should be?

3. What about the second equation? The second equation is the equation formed out of the second information in the problem, where the required mixture of the two components x and y is formed using the data given in the problem. This step is called the "Mixture" step and the resulting equation is called "Mixture" equation.

4. How are these examples similar?

These examples are similar in the sense that there are two unknowns in each question. They contain two sets of information that are translated into two linear equations. Thus, they give us a system of linear simultaneous equations, which is then solved to find the values of both the unknowns.

5. How are they different? The examples are different in the type of data they possess. The problems in this category could be on two investments, two chemicals mixture or on coins (pennies, nickels, dimes and quarters). How we form the two equations for a question depends upon how is the information stated in the problem.

6. Find a problem in the text that is similar to the one below.
Livestock Feed. Soy bean meal is 16% protein and corn mean is 9% protein. How many pounds of each should be mixed to get a 350-lb mixture that is 12%