Q:

Stefanie bought a package of pencils for $1.75 and some erasers that cost $0.25 each. She paid a total of $4.25 for these items, before tax. Exactly how many erasers did Stefanie buy?

Accepted Solution

A:
You can use algebra to solve this problem.Stefanie bought total 10 erasers.How to calculate the number of erasers bought by Stefanie?Let we denote the number of erasers bought by her by [tex]x[/tex] (an unknown variable)Then we will have:Total amount before tax = cost of one package of pencil + cost of [tex]x[/tex] erasers[tex]\$4.25 = \$1.75 + x \times \$0.25\\ or\\ 4.25 = 1.75 + 0.25x[/tex]Now we will perform subtraction by 1.75 and division by 0.25 on both sides.[tex]4.25 = 1.75 + 0.25x\\\\ \text{Subtracting 1.75 from both sides}\\\\ 4.25 - 1.75 = 0.25x\\ 2.5 = 0.25x\\ \\ \text{Dividing by 0.25 on both sides}\\\\ \dfrac{2.5}{0.25} = \dfrac{0.25x}{0.25}\\\\ 10 = x\\ x = 10[/tex]Thus, Stefanie bought total 10 erasers.Learn more about algebra and variables here: