To start, write your locations as points, with north and south being positive and negative y respectively and east and west being positive and negative x respectively. Doing this gives us the mall at (-3,-2) and the park at (4,5). Now, we use our distance formula to solve for the unknown distance. Plugging in with the park values as our second values and our mall values as our first values (as well as with our unknown distance as d), we get . This square root can be rounded to 9.9 miles.
Based on the two different purchases, you can write equations for the price of a hotdog (h) and that of a drink (d). These equations can be solved by your favorite method to find the individual prices.
... 6h +4d = 17.00 . . . . . . Carl's purchase
... 3h +4d = 12.50 . . . . . . Susan's purchase
We can see that the difference in purchase cost (of $4.50) is due entirely to the difference in the number of hotdogs (3). Thus, the price of a hotdog must be
... $4.50/3 = $1.50
The 4 drinks are then ($12.50 -4.50) = $8, so must be $2 each. You don't need to figure the cost of a drink to determine that the appropriate answer choice is ...