A cardboard box, which weighs 0.6 pounds empty, is filled with 15 bags of beans and a 4-pound bag of rice. the total weight of the box and the contents inside it is 25.6 pounds. One way to represent this situation is with the equation 0.6+15b+4=25.6. In this situation, what does the solution to the equation represent?

The trick is to read the problem as closely as possible. What I like to do is underline and draw arrows to what each number represents:

0.6 → the weight of the box without anything in it.

15 → the amount of bags of beans.

4 → the weight of 1 bag of rice.

25.6 → the total weight of everything.

Now notice that each one is a weight, except for 15, which is an amount. It just so happens that it's also our number with the variable.

If we look closer, we can tell that we aren't given the weight of the bags of beans. Looking at the problem, we can see a bit more clearly now that we are also given the amount AND the weight of the 1 bag of rice.

So b has to be the weight.

b represents the weight of 1 bag of beans