SOLUTION: Some warehouse stores charges members an annual fee to shop there. On his first trip to a warehouse store, Mr. Marsh pays $50 membership fee. Cases of bottled water cost $4 at the

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Question 993316: Some warehouse stores charges members an annual fee to shop there. On his first trip to a warehouse store, Mr. Marsh pays $50 membership fee. Cases of bottled water cost $4 at the warehouse store. Write and solve an equation to find the total amount mr. Marsh spent on his first trip before tax if he bought 8 cases of water.
Answer by Theo(13342) (Show Source):
You can put this solution on YOUR website!
a = b + c * d
a is the total cost
b is the cost of membership
c is the cost per case
d is the number of cases.

the actual letters used don't really mean anything.
it's what they represent that's important.
sometime you can make them meaningful, but other times you can't because the same letter would have to be used more than once, or you might have to resort to variable names that are more than one letter long.

i'll show you another solution where i used more meaningufl names for the variables.

you know that:

b = 50
c = 4
d = 8

the actual letters used don't really mean anything.
it's what they represent that's important.

formula becomes:

a = 50 + 4 * 8 which becomes:

a = 50 + 32 which becomes:

a = 82.

total cost is equal to 82.

now here's the same solution with more meaninful names to the variables involved.

tc = total cost
mf = membership fee
cpc = cost per case
nc = number of cases.

formula is:

tc = mf + cpc * nc

you have:
mf = 50
cpc = 4
nc = 8

formula becomes:

tc = 50 + 4 * 8

you get the same answer.

you can even just use the names in english as the variable names.

example:

total cost = membership fee + cost per case * number of cases.

membership fee = 50
cost per case = 4
number of cases = 8

formula becomes:

total cost = 50 + 4 * 8

same answer.