Question

A freight carrier charges $0.57 for a package weighing up to one ounce plus and additional $0.32 for each additional ounce or fraction of an ounce. A company is shipping a package weighing 224 grams. What is the cost to ship the package in dollars and cents?

Answer 1

We have to write an equation that uses this info so we can find the cost to ship that package. However, the package weight is given to us in grams and we need it in ounces. So first thing we are going to do is convert that 224 g to ounces. Use the fact that 1 g = .035274 ounces to convert. $224g*\frac{.035274oz}{1g}$. Do the multiplication and cancel out the label of grams and we have 7.901376 ounces. Ok. We know that it costs .57 to mail the package for the first ounce. We have almost 8 ounces. So no matter what, we are paying .57. For each additional ounce we are paying .32. The number of .32's we have to spend depends upon how much the package goes over the first ounce. For the first ounce we pay .57, then for the remaining 6.901376 ounces we pay .32 per ounce. Our equation looks like this: C(x) = .32(6.901376) + .57 and we need to solve for the cost, C(x). Doing the multiplication we find that it would cost $2.78 to ship that package.