Steven just got a new summer job painting fences in his neighborhood. He will be paid $7.25 an hour. His first customer paid him a total of $36.25.

Part A:
If h = the number of hours Steven worked, write an equation that would show how the customer knew how much to pay him.

Part B:
Using the equation you wrote in Part A, how many total hours did Steven work?

(Explain in detail please.)

So we know that he gets paid $7.25 an hour, so now we just need to set up an equation. For every hour he works, he gets $7.25. If h= hours, then it would be expressed like this:

7.25h= amount of total dollars he will get paid

To check this, you can plug in random values, 3 for instance:

7.25 (3)= $21.75 so he would get paid $21.75 for painting fences for 3 hours.

Part B:

If his first customer paid him $36.25, and he gets paid $7.25 an hour, you would divide the 2 values to find how much he earns per hour.

It would be set up like this:

36.25/ 7.25= 5

So he worked 5 hours. We know the first equation can be used to calculate how much he earns in total, so we can just plug it in to check:

7.25(5)= $36.25

That works, so you're all good to go! Hope this helps :)