Algebra 1 Help!

Question

A parking lot has a flat rate fee of $12 and charges $6.50 an hour. Nick paid $57.50 for h hours of parking. What is the maximum number of hours Nick can park his car using this parking lot?

xx thank you!

Answer 1

Hi Alexandra!

Good question. There are a couple different ways to approach a problem like this. We could use an equation, a table, or perhaps just a little common sense. :) For this problem, I think it will make the most sense if we make a table and a little thinking.

Let's see, we're trying to figure out how many hours Nick can park his car in the parking lot if he paid $57.50. Well, he has to immediately pay the $12 fee, so $57.50 - $12.00 = $45.50 left.

Each hour costs $6.50. So, here's the amount of money he has left after each hour:

1 hour --> $45.50 - 6.50 = $39.00

2 hours --> $32.50

3 hours ---> $26.00

...

Hey, wait a minute, there's got to be a faster way, right?

Sure! We could just divide $45.50 / 6.50 = 7. This means that after 7 hours, all the money will be gone!

So, the maximum number of hours Nick can park in this parking lot is 7 hours.

Hope that helps!

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P.S. If you want to solve it with an equation we could write: Cost = 6.50 x + 12.

Then, since he paid $57.50 that is the amount of the cost: 57.50 = 6.50 x + 12

Solving for x, we subtract 12 from both sides:

57.50 - 12 = 6.50 x + 12 - 12

45.50 = 6.50 x

7 = x

The same answer we got with common sense. :)

Answer 2

57.50 = 12 + 6.50h

Can you solve for h and answer?