Question

Talia and Ray are managers of electronics stores with slightly different pricing strategies for USB drives. In Talia's store, customers pay the same amount, c, for each USB drive. In Ray's store, it is a little more exciting. The customer pays an up front cost of $4.00. Ray charges the same price per USB drive, c, but at the register the customer flips a coin. If the coin lands heads up, the customer gets their $4.00 back, plus another $4.00 off the total cost of the USB drives purchased.

Using mathematical notation, specify a model using Talia's pricing strategy that relates y = Total cost to x = Number of USB drives purchased.

Answer 1

Talia's Pricing Model:

y = cx

How to explain the pricing model

where:

y = Total cost

x = Number of USB drives purchased

c = Price per USB drive (constant)

This model represents a linear relationship between the number of USB drives purchased and the total cost. The cost increases proportionally with the number of drives purchased.

For each USB drive purchased, the same cost 'c' is applied. As the number of drives 'x' increases, so does the total cost 'y', at a constant rate. The equation y = cx represents this linear relationship.