Question

Carla works in the publicity office at NSU. She is paid $12 an hour for the first 35 hours she works each week and $18 an hour for every hour after that. If she makes $492 one week, how many hours did she work?

Answer 1

Let e be the number of extra hours that Carla works, then we can set the following equation:

`12\cdot35+18t=492.`

Simplifying the above equation we get:

`420+18t=492.`

Subtracting 420 from the above equation we get:

`\begin{gathered} 420+18t-420=492-420, \\ 18t=72. \end{gathered}`

Dividing the last equation by 18 we get:

`\begin{gathered} (18t)/(18)=(72)/(18), \\ t=4. \end{gathered}`

Therefore she worked for 35+4=39 hours.

Answer: 39 hours.