Question

Ten yards of a particular kind of wire cost $15.30 . What is the cost of the wire per foot?

Answer 1

Given:

Length of wire = 10 yards

Total cost of wire = $15.30

To be able to determine the cost of wire per foot, let's first convert the unit of measure of the wire's length from yards to feet.

Recall: 1 yard = 3 feet

Step 1: Convert the measure of the wire length from yards to feet.

$\text{ 10 (yards) x }\frac{\text{ 3 feet}}{\text{ 1 (yard)}}\text{ = }\frac{\text{10 x 3}}{\text{ 1}}\text{ feet}$$\text{ = 30 feet}$

Therefore, 10 yards is equivalent to 30 feet.

Step 2: Divide the total cost by the total length of wire in feet.

$\text{ Cost of wire per foot = }\frac{\text{ Total cost of wire}}{\text{ Total length of wire}}$$\text{ = }\frac{\text{ \ 15.30}}{\text{ 30 feet}}$$=\text{ \ 0.51 per foot}$

Therefore, the cost of the wire per foot is $0.51