Mr. Spears was purchasing supplies for his math class. He had $25 to spend mechanical pencils and erasers came in bundles of 10 each eraser cost $.50 fill in the missing place in the equation to compute the cost of each mechanical pencil.

Answer 1

To set up the equation, let's first define the variables:

• Let \( x \) be the cost of each mechanical pencil.
• The cost of each eraser is $0.50.
• Erasers come in bundles of 10, so the cost of 10 erasers is \( 10 \times 0.50 = 5 \) dollars.

Since Mr. Spears has $25 to spend in total, we can express the total cost of the mechanical pencils \( n \) and the 10 erasers as follows:

\[ 25 = n \cdot x + 5 \]

Here, \( n \cdot x \) represents the total cost of the mechanical pencils.

Rearranging this equation to isolate the term involving the mechanical pencils gives us:

\[ n \cdot x = 25 - 5 \]

So, the equation simplifies to:

\[ n \cdot x = 20 \]

This implies that the multiplied costs of the mechanical pencils must equal $20 after subtracting the erasers' cost.

To complete the equation specifically for finding the cost of each mechanical pencil depending on how many pencils are bought, we would need additional information about the number of mechanical pencils Mr. Spears intends to buy (value for \( n \)). In general form, if you know the number of pencils purchased, you could solve for \( x \):

\[ x = \frac{20}{n} \]

If you have a specific number for \( n \), you can find \( x \), the cost per mechanical pencil.