Question

A concession stand charges $1.50 per soda and $2.00 per pretzel. Write an expression for the amount of money you would need to buy x sodas and y pretzels. Can someone please EXPLAIN how to do it. I don't want the answer, I just want to know how to do it.

Answer 1

since you dont know how many sodas or pretzels you actually want to buy, leave them as variables.

you that 1 soda is 1.50
2 sodas is 1.50+1.50
3 sodas is 1.50+1.50+1.50

notice that the number of "sodas" dictates the multiple of a unit price

1.50 s ; tells us how much "s" sodas will cost

same idea for he pretzels

Answer 2

of course the name of a variable is not important, but i find it more useful to keep track of if i name them according to their discriptions.

s for soda and p for pretzel is just more logical then x and y to me