Question

Your friend asks you to help him with his snow shoveling business and will pay you 3 pennies for the first job. You agree to help if he triples your payment for each job completed. After 2 shoveling jobs, you will receive 9 pennies, and after 3 shoveling jobs, you will receive 27 pennies.

Complete and solve the equation that finds the number of pennies he will pay you after the seventh shoveling job.


= number of pennies for seventh shoveling job

Payment for the seventh shoveling job =
pennies

Answer 1

Answer: 21.87

Explanation:

First job = 3 pennies

Second job = 9 pennies

Third job = 27 pennies

Do you see the pattern? The pennies are being multiplied by 3 every job or tripling.

Fourth job = 81 pennies

Fifth job = 243 pennies

Sixth job = 729 pennies

Seventh job = 2,187

So the answer would be that after the seventh shoveling job you'd receive 21.87 pennies.

Answer 2

Total = 3^x, where x is the number of jobs worked.

Let x = 7th job:

Total = 3^7 = 2187 pennies. = $21.87