Last month, the zoo held a special "Eat Like an Animal" fundraiser program. Visitors could choose animals from a list and get a taste of the safe human foods those animals eat at the zoo. To join the program, visitors had to pay a fee.

Question

Once in the program, visitors could pick animal diets to try for $15 per animal. Justin participated in the fundraiser, trying the lion, flamingo, and panda diets. He paid $66 for these selections, but he can't remember how much the fee was to join the program.
Which linear equation represents the scenario in #4?

y=15x+21

y=15x+66

y=15x−10

y=15x

Answer 1

To represent the scenario described, let's define our variables:

• \( y \) represents the total amount paid by Justin.
• \( x \) represents the number of animal diets Justin chose to try.
• The fee for joining the program is a fixed cost.

Given that Justin tried 3 animal diets (lion, flamingo, and panda) at $15 each, the cost for the diets would be \( 15x \). Since he paid a total of $66, we can replace \( y \) with 66 when \( x \) is 3.

So, the equation can be set up as:

\[ y = 15x + \text{fee} \]

To find the fee, we can substitute \( x = 3 \) and \( y = 66 \) into the equation:

\[ 66 = 15(3) + \text{fee} \]

Calculating \( 15(3) \):

\[ 15(3) = 45 \]

Now plug it back into the equation:

\[ 66 = 45 + \text{fee} \]

Subtracting 45 from both sides gives:

\[ \text{fee} = 66 - 45 = 21 \]

So, the total amount paid by Justin can be represented as:

\[ y = 15x + 21 \]

Thus, the correct linear equation that represents the scenario is:

y = 15x + 21.