If a person bought 8 items and each item was priced at $4, that means the total amount spent was $32.
[tex](8)(4)=32[/tex]
The person received 8 dollars in change. This means that the person payed 8 dollars more than what they spent. Well, we just found out how much they spent, so we can find out how much money the person gave the vendor.
Let p = amount of money paid by the person.
[tex] 32+8=p [/tex]
[tex] p=40 [/tex]
The person gave the vendor $40.