Question

n.2 multi-step word problems with positive rational numbers jvu you have prizes to reveal! go to your game board. on friday night, suzie babysat her cousin for 3 1 2 hours and earned $8.50 per hour. on saturday, she babysat for her neighbors for 4 1 2 hours. if she made a total of $72.50 from both babysitting jobs, how much did suzie earn per hour on saturday?

Answer 1

$9.50

Explanation:

You want Suzie's hourly rate on Saturday if she babysat for 3.5 hours on Friday, earning 8.50 per hour, and for 4.5 hours on Saturday, earning a total of 72.50 from both jobs.

Earnings

For (hours, rates) of (h1, r1) and (h2, r2), Suzie's total earnings for the two jobs are ...

earnings = h1·r1 +h2·r2

Filling in the known values, we can find r2:

72.50 = 3.5·8.50 +4.5·r2

72.50 = 29.75 +4.5·r2 . . . . . . . simplify

42.75 = 4.5·r2 . . . . . . . . . . . subtract 29.75

9.50 = r2 . . . . . . . . . . . . divide by 4.5

Suzie earned $9.50 per hour on Saturday.

__

Additional comment

The steps of the "multistep" problem are ...

• find Friday's earnings
• subtract that from the total to find Saturday's earnings
• divide by Saturday's hours to find the hourly rate

Effectively, these are the steps to solving the equation we wrote.