A certain brand of cereal costs $3.25 per box before sales tax is added. When you buy 5 or more boxes of this cereal you receive 1 additional box for free. What is the average cost per box of cereal for 6 boxes before sales tax is added?

Question

anonymous · Answer

@jim_thompson5910 can you help me?

jim_thompson5910 · Answer

If you buy 5 boxes, you get that sixth box free. So when calculating the average, you're really averaging the cost of 5 boxes (and not 6)

anonymous · Answer

AHHHHHHH!!!! they were trying to confuse us then.so my next step wil be to multiply $3.25*5?

jim_thompson5910 · Answer

So you would add up 3.25 five times (or multiply it by 5)

Then you would divide this total by 6 since there are 6 boxes

So you would get

(5*3.25)/6 = 2.708333 = 2.71

making that the average cost per box

jim_thompson5910 · Answer

anything under 5 boxes will make the average cost equal to 3.25

buying that 5th box shifts the average cost down because you're getting more boxes but paying less (than if you didn't get that 6th box for free)

jim_thompson5910 · Answer

so you can see (a little bit) why buying in bulk is sometimes advantageous

anonymous · Answer

THANK YOU! WILL YOU HELP ME IN ANOTHER PROBLEMS PLEASE?!:)