Problema Solution
Greg and Brandon have summer jobs selling newspaper subscriptions door-to-door, but their compensation plans are different. Greg earns a base wage of $5 per hour, as well as $1 for every subscription that he sells. Brandon gets $2 per subscription sold, in addition to a base wage of $3 per hour. If they each sell a certain number of subscriptions in an hour, they will end up earning the same amount. How many subscriptions would that be?
Write a system of equations, graph them, and type the solution.
Answer provided by our tutors
Let
x = the number of subscriptions that each sold
y1 = 5 + 1*x is the money that Greg will earn for selling x subscriptions in 1 hour
y2 = 3 + 2*x is the money that Brandon will earn for selling x subscriptions in 1 hour
Since they will end up earning the same amount follows y1 = y2 or we can write the following system of equations:
y = 5 + x
y = 3 + 2x
By graphing the above equations we find the solution as the point where the two lines intersect:
click here to see the graphing of y = 5 + x and y = 3 + 2x
The lines intersect at (2, 7).
The solution is: each sold 2 subscriptions in an hour.