Question

Company A sells hats for $11 per hat plus a fixed $7 shipping and handling fee. Company B sells hats for $8 per hat plus a fixed $16 shipping and handling fee. The marketing director of company A wants to set up a system of equations to find the number of hats for which the total cost of an order for the two companies is the same. He uses the variables x and y. He lets y represent the total cost of an order. What will x represent?
x = total cost of an order
x = shipping costs for company B
x = shipping costs for company A
x = number of hats

Answer 1

In this context, since the marketing director of Company A uses the variable \( y \) to represent the total cost of an order, the variable \( x \) will represent the number of hats ordered.

Thus, the correct option is:
**x = number of hats**.