Question

Mai works as a tutor for $12 an hour and as a waitress for $7 an hour. This month,she worked a combined total of 85 hours at her two jobs. Let t be the number of hours Mai worked as a tutor this month. Write an expression for the combined total dollar amount she earned this month.total earned (in dollars) = ?

Answer 1

Let t be the number of hours Mai works as a tutor.

Given that She earns $12 a hour as a tutor, this implies that for t number of hours, she will earn

`\begin{gathered} \$12* t \\ =\$\text{ 12t} \end{gathered}`

For the month, she worked a combined total of 85 hours. This implies that

`\begin{gathered} 85=t\text{ + (number of hours worked as a waitress) } \\ \Rightarrow nu\text{mber of hours worked as a waitress = (85-t) hours} \end{gathered}`

Her total eranings for the month is expressed as

Recall that she earnes $7 an hour while working as a waitress.

Thus, we have her combined total amount in dollars expressed as

`\text{Total earned (in dollars)=12t+7(85-t)}`

Hence, the expression is