Question

9. Critique Reasoning Mario reads a sign at a bicycle rental shop. The sign says that

bicycle rentals are $25 for the first hour and $20 for each hour after that. He writes the
following piecewise-defined function for this situation.
25x
if 0 < x≤ 1
ifx>1
f(x)=
20x+5
Explain the error in Mario's reasoning. Then write a piecewise-defined function that
represents this situation.

Answer 1

Explanation:

The error is that it doesn't matter whether Mario rents the bicycle for 1 second or for 1 hour, he still pays $25 in both cases.

The correct piecewise-defined function is:

• f(x) = 25 if 0 ≤ x ≤ 1

• f(x) = 25 + 20 * ceil(x-1) if x > 1