Question

9) A notebook costs $3.50 and a binder costs $6.70. Jessica bought m binders. She also bought 4 fewernotebooks than binders. Write an algebraic expression for the total amount she spent.

Answer 1

Explanation:

We are told that a notebook costs $3.50 and a binder costs $6.70

If we represent the number of notebooks to be n and binders to be m

Also, we are told that she bought 4 fewer notebooks than binders

Then, we can say that

$n=m-4$

The total amount spent can be obtained using the basic principle

$Amount=cost\text{ per unit}\times quantity\text{ sold }$

Therefore

we have

$Total\text{ Amount}=3.50(n)+6.70(m)$

But, we have established that n = m-4

Thus

$Total\text{ amount =3.5\lparen m-4\rparen+6.7\lparen m\rparen}$

The total amount in terms of the binders will be

$\begin{gathered} 3.5m-14+6.7m \\ 3.5m+6.7m-14 \\ 10.2m-14 \end{gathered}$

Thus,

we can also express the total amount in terms of the binders as

$Total\text{ amount }=10.2m-14$