Question

A real estate salesperson bought promotional calendars and date books to give to her customers at the end of the year. The calendars cost ​$0.40 ​each, and the date books cost ​$0.50 each. She ordered a total of 500 promotional items and spent ​$210. How many of each item did she​ order?

Answer 1

The real estate salesperson ordered 400 calendars at $0.40 each and 100 date books at $0.50 each to make a total of 500 promotional items with a budget of $210.

Step-by-step explanation:

The question involves finding out how many calendars and date books a real estate salesperson ordered given a set budget and individual item costs. Using algebra, we can set up two equations based on the total number of items and the total cost to solve this problem.

Step-by-step Solution:

1. Let x represent the number of calendars and y represent the number of date books.
2. The first equation based on the total number of items is x + y = 500.
3. The second equation based on the total cost is 0.40x + 0.50y = 210.
4. Multiply the first equation by 0.40 to facilitate elimination: 0.40x + 0.40y = 200.
5. Subtract this new equation from the cost equation to eliminate x: (0.40x + 0.50y) - (0.40x + 0.40y) = 210 - 200, resulting in 0.10y = 10.
6. Solving for y, we find that y = 100, meaning 100 date books were ordered.
7. Plugging y = 100 into the first equation x + 100 = 500, we solve for x giving us x = 400, meaning 400 calendars were ordered.

Therefore, the salesperson ordered 400 calendars and 100 date books.