Quantitative Literacy

Quantitative Problem Solving

QLT Task 5

January 20, 2013

Task A
Misty is going to start college in the fall. Her father has agreed to pay her tuition and board but she must cover all other expenses, including supplies and books. Misty has been working a summer job to save money for these expenses and is hoping to be thrifty enough in her purchases to not have to work during her first semester of college. She is anticipating a large expense on books but is hoping to save some money on purchasing school supplies by looking at discount retailers instead of the college bookstore.
Misty has found two companies, Company A and Company B, with some great back to school deals on school supplies. Company A is offering ten percent off each dollar spent on school supplies with no minimum purchase required. While that sounds like a great deal, Company B is offering twenty-five percent off all school supplies purchased after spending an initial one hundred dollars.
While both options offer a great discount, Misty wants to determine which would save her the most money. Before moving any further, Misty must determine what her total bill for school supplies might be by identifying the items she will need to purchase and then totaling the final cost. Once that has been ascertained, she will need to calculate the possible savings on each plan to determine which one will be most cost effective.

Task B
In order to calculate the savings, Misty is going to let (y) represent to total cost of her school supplies after all discounts have been applied. She will use (d) to represent the discount percent she is going to receive from the company. As prices from each company are comparable, she has calculated the total cost of her school supplies to be $230.00 which will be represented as the variable (x). The following is an algebraic