Question

Which number describes the value of his signing bonus? Michael has a substantial student debt, but he recently got a new job, which came with a signing bonus. He calculates that with his new job, he can put aside a fixed amount of money every month to pay off his debt. He also puts the entirety of his bonus towards paying off his debt. He constructs the expression 36,700 - (5,000+500m) to represent the size of his debt after months. Which number describes the value of his signing bonus?

Answer 1

5000.

Explanation:

It is given that Michael put aside a fixed amount of money every month to pay off his debt. He also puts the entirety of his bonus towards paying off his debt.

He gets signing bonus once. So, there is no effect of month on amount of bonus.

The expression which represents the size of his debt after m months is

`36,700-(5000+500m)`

Here,

m is number of months.

500 is fixed amount of money every month to pay off his debt.

36,700 is student debt.

5000 is signing bonus.

Therefore, number 5000 describes the value of his signing bonus.