Maria purchased 8 pounds of strawberries and paid a total of $32. If all strawberries were priced at the same...

1. TRANSLATE the problem information

• Given information:
  • 8 pounds of strawberries purchased
  • $32 total cost paid
  • Same price per pound for all strawberries
• What we need to find: the price per pound (how much 1 pound costs)

2. INFER the approach

• To find 'price per pound,' we need to determine how much ONE pound costs
• Since we know the total cost for multiple pounds, we divide: total cost ÷ total pounds
• This gives us the cost for one pound

3. Set up and calculate

• Price per pound = Total cost ÷ Number of pounds
• Price per pound = \(\$32 ÷ 8\) pounds
  Price per pound = \(\$4\) per pound

Answer: $4 per pound (or simply 4)

Why Students Usually Falter on This Problem

Most Common Error Path:

Weak INFER skill: Students divide in the wrong order, calculating \(8 ÷ 32 = 0.25\) instead of \(32 ÷ 8 = 4\).

They think about the numbers they see (8 and 32) but don't reason through which should be divided by which. They might think '8 goes into 32' without considering what that calculation actually represents in the context of finding price per pound.

This leads them to get $0.25 per pound, which they might accept without checking if it makes sense (strawberries costing 25 cents per pound would be unrealistically cheap).

The Bottom Line:

Unit rate problems require clear thinking about what 'per unit' means and which quantity represents the total versus the number of units. The key insight is that 'per pound' means 'for each pound,' so you need total cost divided by total pounds.