Question

Roland hires a mechanic to do some work. He pays y dollars per hour for a 3-hour job plus $48 in replacement parts. The total cost comes to $200. Please round to the nearest cent.

Create an equation that can be used to find the amount, in dollars, the mechanic charges per hour.

Answer 1

So, the variable here is y: the amount of dollars per hour of work. We already know how many hours (3), the additional costs (48), and the total cost (200). What we need to do is put this into an equation. So we have number of hours times hourly rate plus additional costs:
3y + 48 = 200

In order to solve for y, this is what you have to do:
3y + 48 = 200 (subtract 48 from both sides)
3y = 152 (divide by 3 on both sides)
y = 50.666666
round to the nearest cent and you’d get a final answer of:
50.67