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algebra intermediate

Problem

A bookstore is deciding what price it should charge for a certain book. After research, the store finds that if the book's price is dollars (where ), then the number of books sold per month is . What price should the store charge to maximize its revenue?
Solution
The store's revenue is given by: number of books sold price of each book, or . We want to maximize this expression by completing the square. We can factor out a to get .

To complete the square, we add inside the parenthesis and subtract outside. We are left with the expression Note that the term will always be nonpositive since the perfect square is always nonnegative. Thus, the revenue is maximized when equals 0, which is when . Thus, the store should charge dollars for the book.
Final answer
13