Question

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 - ( 5000 + 500m )to represent the size of his debt after m months. Which number describes the value of his signing bonus?

Answer 1

5000

Explanation:

Given the question :

The size of debt after m months is respresented by the expression :

36,700 - (5000 + 500m)

Since Michael has decided to dedicate the entirety of his signing bonus towards paying his debt, then that is a constant and one-off payment.

Also, a fixed portion of his salary each month has also been assigned towards paying off his debt,

Then the amount paid from his salary after a certain number of months will be:

Fixed amount × number of months = 500 × m

Amount paid using signing bonus will be a constant = 5000

Total debt amount = 36,700

Size of debt left after m months :

Total debt - ( signing bonus - fixed amount × m)

Hence signing bonus = 5000