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

175
175

200
200

150
150

250

Answer 1

To find the value the contractor used for the weight of a person, we can set up the equation based on the given information.

Let \( x \) be the weight of one person. The porch needs to hold 20 people, so the total weight for the people would be \( 20x \). Additionally, there is furniture that weighs 250 lb.

The total weight capacity is given as 3750 lb:

\[ 20x + 250 = 3750 \]

Now, we can solve for \( x \):

1. Subtract 250 from both sides: \[ 20x = 3750 - 250 \] \[ 20x = 3500 \]

2. Divide by 20: \[ x = \frac{3500}{20} \] \[ x = 175 \]

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