Question: Rodney is a door-to-door salesman trying to sell home security systems. He gets a commission of $25 for each system he sells. He is canvassing a neighborhood of four streets with eight houses each. The first street gave him half the sales that the second street did, while every house on the third street turned him away and the fourth street resulted in only one sale. His total commission was $175. How many security systems did he sell on the second street?
Answer with step-by-step thinking: Let S be the number of systems Rodney sold on the first street. He sold 2S systems on the second street. Based on his commission, he sold 175 / 25 = 7 systems. In all, he sold S + 2S + 0 + 1 = 3S + 1 = 7 systems. On the first and second streets, he sold 3S = 7 - 1 = 6 systems. Thus, on the first street he sold S = 6 / 3 = 2 systems. On the second street, Rodney sold 2 * 2 = 4 security systems.
So the answer is 4.


Question: Zane purchases 2 polo shirts from the 40% off rack at the men’s store. The polo shirts are $50 each at the regular price. How much did he pay for the shirts?
Answer with step-by-step thinking: At regular price, the polo shirts are 2 x $50 = $100. At 40% off, he gets a discount of , $100 x 40% = $40. With this discount, the polo shirts cost $100 - $40 = $60.
So the answer is 60.


Question: Tom has only been getting 6 hours of sleep a day. He increases that by 1/3. How many hours of sleep does he get per night?
Answer with step-by-step thinking:
He increases his sleep by 6 / 3 = 2 hour per night. So he now gets 6 + 2 = 8 hours of sleep per night.
So the answer is 8.