Ieda and thanh both offer piano lessons. ieda charges an initial fee of $8.50 and an hourly rate of $11.00. thanh charges an initial fee of $10.00 and an hour rate of $10.50. at how many hours of instruction will the price for each instructor be the same?
2 hours
3 hours
20 hours
30 hours

Ieda: $11.00 (hourly price) + $8.50 (initial fee) = $19.50 (for 1 hour)

Thanh: $10.50 (hourly price) + $10.00 (initial fee) = $20.50 (for 1 hour)

Now that you have the price for 1 hour including the initial fee, now you need to find the price for each hour after that. Here's how I did that:

I created a graph that looked like this:

Hours:       1                 2                  3               
Ieda:      19.50          30.50         41.50
Thanh:   20.50          31.00         41.50

Here's how I figured out the price for each hour:

Ieda:

Hour 1 (including initial price):
            $11.00 + $8.50 = $19.50
Hour 2 (excluding initial price): Only add the hourly price after Hour 1!
            $19.50 + $11.00 = $30.50 
Hour 3 (excluding initial price):
            $30.50 + $11.00 = $41.50

Thanh:

Hour 1 (including initial price):
            $10.50 + $10.00 = $20.50
Hour 2 (excluding initial price):
            $20.50 + $10.50 = $31.00
Hour 3 (excluding initial price):
            $31.00 + $10.50 = $41.50

So, looking at the graph, their prices are the same once each instruction reaches 3 hours. ($41.50)

11h+8.50=10.50h+10
Solve for h
h=3 hours answer