Question

Wendy earns \[\$2\] for every table she serves plus \[20\%\] of the total customer order. How do you define a variable and write an expression to represent the amount of money she earns for one table?

Answer 1

Hint: In order to find a solution to this problem, we will have to first convert this word problem into mathematical format and then after converting into mathematical form, we will have to create an equation or expression, since it is a percent equation problem.

Complete step by step solution:
As we know, we have our problem as a word problem, so we will first convert it into a mathematical problem.
Therefore, breaking down our problem into parts, we get:
Let total income per table be \[\$t\],
Let the value of the order for one table be \[\$v\].
Also, $20\%$ can be written as $\dfrac{20}{100}$.
The basic percent equation can be stated as,
$amount=base\times percent$
Since, \[\$2\] is the base and $20\%$ that is $\dfrac{20}{100}$ is the percent.
Now, as we have gathered information, we will now create an equation or expression based on the problem.
Therefore, expression can be written as,
$\$t=\$2+\dfrac{20}{100}\$v$
Since, $\$t$ is the total income and she earns \[\$2\] and gets \[20\%\] on every table \[\$v\]; that means the total income will be addition of money she earned plus percent she gets on every table.

Hence, our expression is:
$\$t=\$2+\dfrac{20}{100}\$v$

Note: We are using percent $\%$ in our problem and $\%$ is a unit of measurement and it is worth $\dfrac{1}{100}$, so \[20\%\] is the same as $\dfrac{20}{100}$.
The Basic Percent Equation is the basic relationship that we need to learn to understand. A word problem is a few sentences describing a 'real-life' scenario, where a problem needs to be solved in a way of a mathematical calculation.
We need to know how to identify which number is the base and which number is the amount.