Question

A customer went to a garden shop and bought some potting soil for $17.50 and 4 shrubs. The total bill was $53.50. Write and solve an equation to find the price of each shrub

Answer 1

\[\frac{1}{4} (53.5\, -17.5)=9 \]

Answer 2

What you need to do in these questions is take out the essential data as follows:
potting soil = $17.50
number of shrubs = 4
total bill = $53.50.
let x = a shrub
therefore the total amount he spent was $17.50 + 4(x) = $53.50
Now we just use the rules of algebra to find the price of a shrub:
First, subtract $17.50 from both sides as follows:
$17.50 (-$17.50) + 4(x) = $ 53.50 - ($17.50)
4(x) = $36.00
dividing across by 4 we get
4(x)/4 = $36.00/4
x = $9