Question

John is buying pots for the plants in his garden. The small pots are priced at

m dollars each. He has already spent b dollars on the big pots. The following expression represents the total amount that John would spend on pots after buying x small pots. If the value of the small pots, m dollars, is tripled, select the statement that accurately describes its effect on the expression.
A. The expression becomes 3mx+b

B. The expression becomes mx+3b

C. The expression becomes 3(m+x)+b

D. The expression remains unchanged as mx+b

Answer 1

The correct expression after tripling the cost of the small pots is 3mx + b, which represents the total cost being three times the cost of the small pots plus the unchanged cost of the big pots.

Step-by-step explanation:

John is buying small pots for m dollars each and has already spent b dollars on big pots. If the value of the small pots, m dollars, is tripled, the expression that represents the total amount John spends after buying x small pots is impacted as follows: the cost per small pot goes from m to 3m. Therefore, the new expression for the total spent on pots, after tripling the cost of each small pot, would be 3mx + b.

If originally the expression was mx + b, where m was representing the cost per small pot, and x the number of small pots purchased, by tripling m, you multiply the cost of each small pot by 3. The number of small pots, x, and the amount spent on big pots, b, remains unchanged. Hence, the correct equation is 3mx + b, which means the expression becomes three times the cost of the small pots plus the original cost of the big pots.