Question

An episode of a television show is 60 minutes long when it originally airs with commercials. On a DVD without commercials, the episode is only 41 1/2 minutes long. How many 1/2 minute commercials did the episode include when it originally aired? Enter and solve an equation to justify your answer.The equation blank + Blankc = blank models the problem, where c is the number of commercials. The episode included blank 1/2 commercials.

Answer 1

The episode with commercials consists of 60 minutes, and without those, it consists of 41.5minutes; therefore, 60-41.5=18.5 minutes are only commercials when the episode airs.

Divide those 18.5minutes into intervals of 0.5 minutes by calculating

`(18.5)/(0.5)=37`

Therefore, the equation is

`\begin{gathered} 41.5+0.5c=60 \\ \end{gathered}`

Solving for c,

`\Rightarrow c=(18.5)/(0.5)=37`

Then, the episode included 37 1/2-minute commercials.