abeardsley said:
Lets say rretailer spends $48 to purchase a number of mugs. 2 of them were broken in the store. By selling the remaining mugs $3 above cost she made a profit of $22. How do I go about constructing an equation to allow me to solve for the number of mugs originally purchased?
Start by
naming things.
You are looking for the number of mugs originally purchased. So,
Let n = number of mugs originally purchased
Now, the retailer paid $48 for those mugs, so the cost of ONE mug would be 48/n.
And the retailer sold those mugs for $3 above the cost, so the selling price for a mug would be (48/n) + 3
How many mugs did she sell? Well, she originally bought "n" of them, but 2 were broken in the store. So, she has (n - 2) mugs to sell.
Revenue = number sold * price per item
Revenue for selling the mugs = (n - 2)*[(48/n) + 3]
Profit = Revenue - Cost, as you said.
The profit was $22
The revenue was (n - 2)*[(48/n) + 3]
The cost of the mugs was $48
22 = (n - 2)*[(48/n) + 3] - 48
There's the equation you need to solve.
If you're still having trouble, please repost showing ALL of the work you've done so we can see where further assistance is needed.
