gertude sells shoes. Her total pay each week is made up of a base salary and a commision of 15% of her sales that week.

Question

One week her total pay is 167.50 and she has 850 $ in sales. What equation best represents the relationship between her pay,P, each week and sales, S?

Answer 1

I'm not sure exactly how you want this set up but we can find her base pay P from the information and set up an equation using that:

 

If P = base pay, S = sales, T = total pay  then

 

P + .15S = T

 

In the week given T = 167.50 and S = 850 so

 

P + .15(850) = 167.50

P + 127.50 = 167.50

P = 167.50 - 127.50

P = 40

 

Thus we see that the base pay before sales commission is $40

 

Setting this into a basic equation from which weekly pay can be determined we have

 

T = .15S + 40