Nadia charges $7.50 an hour for babysitting. She babysits 18.5 hours the first week of the month and 20 hours the second week of the month. To find her total earnings for those two weeks, Nadia writes \(7.5 \times (18.5 + 20) = $158.75\).
Explain her error and show the correct solution.
Answer (3)
Nadia miscalculated her earnings by not correctly **multiplying **her hourly rate by the total hours of both weeks. The correct calculation shows that she made $288.75 for the two weeks. ;
Nadia improperly calculated her babysitting earnings by adding hours directly to one week's income instead of multiplying her hourly rate by the total hours for each week. The correct total earnings for the two weeks should be $288.75, calculated by adding $138.75 from the first week to $150 from the second week.
Nadia made an error in her calculation for her total earnings babysitting over the first two weeks of the month. The correct way to calculate this would be to multiply the number of hours she worked each week by her hourly rate and then add the sums for each week together. The correct calculation should be as follows:
Week 1 earnings: 7.5 (hourly rate) x 18.5 (hours) = $138.75 Week 2 earnings: 7.5 (hourly rate) x 20 (hours) = $150.00
To find the total for both weeks, we add Week 1 and Week 2 earnings together:
Total earnings = Week 1 earnings + Week 2 earnings Total earnings = $138.75 + $150.00 = $288.75
Nadia's mistake was that she did not multiply her hourly rate by the total hours she worked during the second week; instead, she simply added the number of hours to her Week 1 earnings.
Nadia's error was in not calculating her earnings for each week separately by multiplying the hours she worked by her hourly rate. The correct calculation shows her total earnings for the two weeks amount to $288.75. Therefore, the right way to find her earnings is to calculate each week's earnings individually and then sum them up.
;
