A newspapers profit is 20 per year for each of its 2500 subs

A newspaper\'s profit is $20 per year for each of its 2,500 subscribers. Management estimates that the profit per subscriber will increase by 1¢ for each additional subscriber over the current 2,500. How many subscribers will bring a total profit of $140,000? 6997.75 or 6998 subscribers is not the answer.

Solution

Let the number of new subscribers added be x. Then (20.01)(2500+x) = 140000 or, 20.01x + 50025 = 140000 or, 20.01x = 140000-50025 = 89975. Therefore, x = 89975/20.01 = 4496.501749 = 4497 ( on rounding off to the nearest whole number). Thus, the total number of subscribers = 2500 + x = 2500 + 4497 = 6997.

Note:

The actual figure would be 140000/ 20.01 = 6996.501749. However, since the number of subscribers cannot be in decimals, this number has to to rounded off to the nearest whole number, which is 6997.