Question

A company has a monthly budget of x dollars. Every month, $20,700 of the monthly budget is spent on salaries. One-fifth of the remaining budget is spent on office supplies. Which function can be used to calculate the amount, in dollars, spent on office supplies?

Answer 1

Answer: Amount spent on office supplies can be calculated as this: $(1/5 × (x — 20,700).

Explanation:

Step 1:

Let Monthly Budget of the Company, M = $x

Amount spent on salaries, S = $20,700

Step 2:

To get balance of the budget, R. Subtract S from M

Therefore,

Remaining balance of the budget, R = $(x — 20,700)

Step 3:

Amount spent on office supplies O is given as 1/5 of balance of the budget. I.e, O = 1/5 × R

Therefore, O = $(1/5 × (x — 20,700).

Answer 2

`OS=(x-20,700)/(5)`

Explanation:

Functions to model reality

There are situations in real life where some variables depend on other(s) and that dependency can be determined as a practical rule or from a well-known theory. The expression who relates those variables are commonly called functions and they become a very useful tool to analyze, explain and predict the behavior of such events.

We know the monthly budget of a company is x dollars. $20,700 out of it is spent on salaries. After deducting salaries, the remaining budget is

`x-20,700`

One-fifth of it is spent on office supplies, so the required function is

`OS=(1)/(5)(x-20,700)`

`OS=(x-20,700)/(5)`