Question

Jake's older brother Sam has a choice of two summer jobs. He can either work at an electronics store or at the school's bus garage. The electronics store would pay him to work 15 hours per week. He would make $8 per hour plus a 2% commission on his electronics sales. At the school's bus garage, Sam could earn $300 per week working 15 hours cleaning busses. Sam wants to take the job that pays him the most. How much in electronics would Sam have to sell for the job at the electronics store to be the better choice for his summer job?

Answer 1

9000

Explanation:

Answer 2

I'd normally say matter how the money works out, Sam should obviously take the electronics store job. He might learn some electronics and some business and as a result not have to spend the rest of his life cleaning buses. But here they're paying him $20 an hour to clean buses compared to $8 an hour to move electronics, so he probably should clean buses for a summer. He'll gain an appreciation for clean buses and the people who clean them. In the end Sam might help pull the cart of civilization a little farther by becoming an engineer. He'll need to know some math.

15 hours * $8 per hour = $120

$300 - $120 = $180 Sam needs to make up in sales commission

Let x be the sales price of the electronics Sam sells. We need

0.02 × x = 180

x = 180 / .02 = 50(180)= $9000

Answer: Sam needs to sell more than $9000 of electronics every week to make as much as he'd make cleaning buses.

Check: 15×8 + 9000×0.02 = 120 + 180 = 300, good