A girl spends a quarter of her weekly allowance on a movie. The movie cost 4.25. What is her weekly allowance?

Question

Need to solve two ways and explain the answer and steps

Answer 1

Here is one way:

 

Rephrase the problem --  "One-fourth ("a quarter") of the weekly allowance is $4.25, what is the allowance?"

Let x=weekly allowance.

Translate:

  "One-fourth ("a quarter") of the weekly allowance is $4.25"      means

       (1/4)                        *               x                 = 4.25

      [ note that "of" usually means multiply; a quarter is one-fourth;  "is" means "=" )

 

  ""what is the allowance?"       means        solve for x

 

Note: either convert (1/4) to (0.25) or else convert (4.25 to 4 1/4); let's use 0.25 since we want to get dollars and cents as the answer.

             0.25x = $4.25

               x = $17.00            (multiply both sides by 4)