Question

A contractor is adding a back porch on to a house. The porch needs to hold 20 people and furniture that weighs 250 lb. The contractor calculates that the porch needs to hold 3750 lb to meet that specification. What value did the contractor use for the weight of a person?(3 points) Responses 150 150 250 250 200 200 175

Answer 1

To determine the value that the contractor used for the weight of a person, we first need to find the total weight that the porch needs to support (3750 lb) and subtract the weight of the furniture (250 lb).

1. Subtract the weight of the furniture from the total weight: $$3750\text{ lb}-250\text{ lb}=3500\text{ lb}$$

2. Now, this weight (3500 lb) needs to be divided by the number of people (20) to find the weight per person: $$\frac{3500\text{ lb}}{20\text{ people}}=175\text{ lb/person}$$

Thus, the contractor used 175 lb as the weight of a person.