Question

You are in charge of purchases at the student-run used-book supply program at your college, and you must decide how many introductory calculus, history, and marketing texts should be purchased from students for resale. Due to budget limitations, you cannot purchase more than 700 of these textbooks each semester. There are also shelf-space limitations: Calculus texts occupy 2 units of shelf space each, history books 1 unit each, and marketing texts 4 units each, and you can spare at most 1,200 units of shelf space for the texts. If the used book program makes a profit of $10 on each calculus text, $4 on each history text, and $8 on each marketing text, how many of each type of text should you purchase to maximize profit? HINT [See Example 3.]
calculus text(s) =

history text(s) =

marketing text(s) =

What is the maximum profit the program can make in a semester?

Answer 1

Answer:

• Calculus texts: 600
• History texts: 0
• Marketing texts: 0

Step-by-step explanation:

Each Calculus text returns $10/2 = $5 per unit of shelf space. For History and Marketing texts, the respective numbers are $4/1 = $4 per unit, and $8/4 = $2 per unit. Using 1200 units of shelf space for 600 Calculus texts returns ...

  $5/unit × 1200 units = $6000 . . . profit

Any other use of units of shelf space will reduce profit.