Mixture and Allegation

Let us try to understand the concept of mixture with an example.

Example: A shopkeeper has two varieties of wheat with him. One of them costs Rs. C1 per kg while the other costs Rs. C2 per
kg. The shopkeeper mixes them in the ratio a : b. What will be the price of the mixture per kg?
Solution: The weighted average of the prices of the two varieties of wheat will give the price of the mixture (C)
..(i)
We can re-write the formula in (i) above as follows:
The leads us to the concept of Alligation which gives the relationship between prices and quantities of various types of an item
in a mixture.
The above rule can be described as follows:

The above concept is extremely useful in solving a variety of problems from various topics.
Examples:
(1) Two salt solutions have concentrations 15% and 40%. In what ratio should they be mixed to get a solution of
concentration 30%?
Solution:

So, They should be mixed in the ratio 2 : 3.

(2) There are 400 students in a Mathematics class. Average age of girls is 10 years and average age of boys is 11 years.
Find the number of girls in the class, if the average age of all the students is 10 years 9 months.
Solutions.

So , number of girls =

= 100

(3) Some part of a sugar solution which contains 40% sugar is replaced with another sugar solution which contains 19%
sugar. Part of sugar in the new mixture became 26% what fraction of the original sugar solution was replaced with
another sugar solution?
Solutions:

Total number of units

2 units of original solution, out of 3, were replaced.
of the original solution was replaced.
(4) There are total 50 cons of 1 rupee and 50 paise in a bag. Total value of the coins is Rs. 35. What is the number of 50 p
cons in the bag?
Solutions:

So, number of 50 p coins