Question

Carla works in the publicity office at NSU. She is paid $12 an hour for the first 35 hours she works each week and $18 an hour for every hour after that. If she makes $492 one week, how many hours did she work?

Answer 1

Let e be the number of extra hours that Carla works, then we can set the following equation:

$12\cdot35+18t=492.$

Simplifying the above equation we get:

$420+18t=492.$

Subtracting 420 from the above equation we get:

$\begin{gathered} 420+18t-420=492-420, \\ 18t=72. \end{gathered}$

Dividing the last equation by 18 we get:

$\begin{gathered} \frac{18t}{18}=\frac{72}{18}, \\ t=4. \end{gathered}$

Therefore she worked for 35+4=39 hours.

Answer: 39 hours.