i need help with this math problem for class.

Question

A salesman's salary is $9 per hour plus $250 in sales commission. His total weekly pay this week was $565. How many hours did the salesman work this week? Write an equation to model and solve the problem. Explain the answer in terms of the problem. Show all work.

Answer 1

Let's break this into parts to set up an equation.

The salesman makes $9 per hour, so at 1 hour it it will be $9, and 2 hours he will make another $9 (total $18), etc.

So to represent that we use 9x, where x is is the number of hours. 9(1)=9, 9(2)=18, etc.

The problem says he also makes $250 in sales, so we just add $250 to our equation.

9x + 250

Finally, it says that the total amount of money he made was $565, so we can say that...

9x +250 = 565

The problem asks how many hours did he work to make that money? Or, what value of x (time) will give us his total income of $565?

So now we just solve for x by subtracting 250 from both sides, and then dividing both sides by 9

9x = 565 - 250

9x = 315

x=35

So he worked for 35 hours. Let me know if you have any more questions.