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)

Question

Responses

250
250

200
200

150
150

175
175

Answer 1

To find the weight value the contractor used for each person, we can set up the equation based on the total weight requirement of 3750 lb.

Let \( x \) be the weight of one person. There are 20 people, so the total weight of the people would be \( 20x \). The total weight the porch needs to hold includes both the people and the furniture:

\[ 20x + 250 = 3750 \]

Now, we can isolate \( 20x \):

\[ 20x = 3750 - 250 \] \[ 20x = 3500 \]

Next, we divide by 20 to find \( x \):

\[ x = \frac{3500}{20} = 175 \]

So the contractor used a weight of 175 lb per person.

The correct response is:

175