Mark the amount of sales made as x. Describe Maria's and Liam's salary in terms of x to make an equation.
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Maria and Liam work in a banquet hall. Maria earns a 20% commission on her food sales. Liam earns a weekly salary of $625 plus a 10% commission on his food sales. We want to find the amount of food sales that will result in Maria and Liam earning the same amount for the week. Let's start with defining x.
x - the amount of made food sales
Let's now express Maria's and Liam's salary in terms of x. Maria earns a 20% commission on her food sales. Therefore, her salary will be the amount of sales made x multiplied by 20%= 0.2. Liam earns $625 plus a 10% commission, so his salary will be the amount of sales made x multiplied by 10%= 0.1 plus 625.
Maria's salary:& 0.2x
Liam's salary:& 0.1x+ 625
We want these salaries to be equal, so we need to make an equation that will have Maria's salary on the left-hand side and Liam's salary on the right-hand side.
0.2x = 0.1x+ 625
Now we will solve the obtained equation. We will use the inverse operations to combine like terms on both sides of the equals sign and solve for x.
