Question

A pre-paid cell phone company charges $12.5 as a monthly access fee and $0.14 per minute of calling time.

Express the monthly cost c
in terms of minutes of call time.


What will the monthly cost be if you make 290 minutes of calls this month? $

Answer 1

To express the monthly cost \( c \) in terms of the number of minutes \( m \) of call time, we can set up the equation as follows:

\[
c = 12.5 + 0.14m
\]

where \( 12.5 \) is the monthly access fee and \( 0.14 \) is the cost per minute.

Now, to find the monthly cost if you make 290 minutes of calls, we substitute \( m = 290 \) into the equation:

\[
c = 12.5 + 0.14 \times 290
\]

Now, we calculate \( 0.14 \times 290 \):

\[
0.14 \times 290 = 40.6
\]

Now substitute this value back into the cost equation:

\[
c = 12.5 + 40.6 = 53.1
\]

Thus, the monthly cost will be:

\[
\text{Monthly cost} = 53.10 \text{ dollars}
\]

Therefore, if you make 290 minutes of calls this month, the monthly cost will be **$53.10**.