25.1k views
2 votes
I need help making a linear equation for this scenario?

"You have relatives living in the United Kingdom and in France. Suppose that you have purchased a prepaid phone card with a value of $75. Calls to the United Kingdom cost 23 cents per minute, while calls to France cost 21 cents per minute."

"Write a linear equation in two variables to represent the number of minutes you can use to call those two locations.",

1 Answer

1 vote
Since your total value on the card is $75, we will put that on the left of the equal sign. For our two variables, we will use x and y, following mathematical tradition. Let's assign x to the number of minutes spent calling the United Kingdom and y to the number of minutes calling France. Since it costs $0.23 per minute to call the United Kingdom, we multiply 0.23 by x and get 0.23x for the total cost to call the United Kingdom. Following the same idea, 0.21y will be the total cost to call France. Adding those terms together will give the total cost, so the sum of those two terms will go on the right of the equal sign. The finished equation is given below. 75 = 0.23x + 0.21y
User Bullgare
by
6.4k points