Problema Solution
sam needs to buy 12 shovels and rakes. each shovel costs $17 more than the rake. the total cost of all the items is $869. what's the cost of the rake?
Answer provided by our tutors
let 'x' represent the number of shovels purchased, then '12-x' represents the number of rakes
let 'c' represent the cost of a rake, then 'c+17' represents the cost of a shovel
we then have the following cost equation:
869 = x(c+17) + (12-x)c
since we have one equation with two unknowns we can not solve the problem exactly... we could take guesses as to the number of shovels purchased and then calculate the cost of a rake... for example, if x=6, then the cost of a rake is approximately $1.31... however, if x=4, then the cost of a rake is approximately $1.47