Question

Henry just got a job at the mall. His job pays an hourly rate of $10.25.

A. How many hours will Henry have to work in order to buy the pro Beats headphones that cost $399.95?
B. Suppose Henry wants to make at least $1,200 in order to buy a new snowboard, but he doesn’t want to make more than $2,000 or his parents will make him pay rent. Write an inequality representing the situation. Then, solve for the number of hours he can work.

Answer 1

A. He will have to work 40 hours to buy the headphones

B. 1200 ≤ 10.25x ≤ 2000 where x is # of hrs worked

He can work anywhere between 118 and 196 hours.

Explanation:

A. Divide 399.95 by 10.25 to get 39.01 hours. But since you cant work 0.01 of an hour, you have to round up to the next hour

B. You want to make more than or equal to 1200, so put that in the inequality. You want to make less or equal to 2000, so you put that in the inequality. In the middle, you put 10.25 an hour multiplied by the number of hours, which is a variable.

To solve, I made 10.25x = 1200, and x equaled 117.07, which rounds up to 118 hours because you cant work a 0.07 of an hour. 118 hours is the low number of the spectrum.

To solve for the highest number on the spectrum, you do 10.25x = 2000, and x equals 195.12, but since you cant work 0.12 of an hour, it rounds up to 196 hours.