Question

To own and operating a home printer, it costs $125 for the printer and an additional $0.10 per page for ink. Printing out pages at an office store costs $0.35 per page. Let p represent number of pages.

1. What does the equation 125 + 0.10p = 0.35p represent?
2. The solution to that equation is p = 500. What does the solution mean?

Answer 1

1. the costs of printing are the same for p pages at home or an office store
2. the costs of printing 500 pages either place are the same

Explanation:

You want to know the meaning of the equation 125 + 0.10p = 0.35p and its solution p = 500 in the context of the given scenario.

Values

The problem statement tells us the meaning of the numbers and the variable:

• 125 — the cost of a home printer
• 0.10 — the cost per page of ink for the home printer
• 0.35 — the cost per printed page at an office store
• p — the number of pages

Expressions

The expression ...

125 +0.10p

represents the sum of the purchase cost of a home printer and the cost of printing p pages on that printer at 0.10 per page.

The expresion ...

0.35p

represents the cost of printing p pages at an office store

1. Equation

The equation ...

125 +0.10p = 0.35p

equates the cost of printing p pages with a home printer and the cost of printing p pages at an office store. It says the costs are the same for some number of pages, p.

2. Solution

The solution to the equation, p = 500, represents the number of printed pages that will make the two costs be the same. It means the cost of printing 500 pages with a home printer is the same as the cost of printing 500 pages at an office store.