General Math – Review Discussion

Representing real-life situations using functions, including piecewise functions

Terms to remember:
Piecewise Function – function defined by multiple sub function, where each subfunction applies to a
certain interval of the main function’s domain.

Application:
1. A person is earning 600Php per day to do a certain job. Express the total salary S as a function of
the number n of days that the person works.

2. A user is charge P300 monthly for a particular mobile plan, which includes 100 free text
messages. Messages in excess of 100 are charged P1 each. Represent the monthly cost for text
messaging using the function t(m), where m is the number of messages sent monthly.

3. A certain chocolate bar costs P35.00 per piece. However, if you buy more than 10 pieces, they
will be marked down to a price of P32.00 per piece. Use a piecewise function to represent the cost
in terms of the number of chocolate bars bought.

4. A school’s fair committee wants to sell t-shirts for their school fair. They found a supplier that
sells t-shirts at a price of P175.00 a piece but can charge P15,000 for a bulk order of 100 shirts
and P125.00 for each excess t-shirt after that. Use a piecewise function to represent the cost in
terms of the number of t-shirts purchased.
 General Math – Review Discussion

5. The fee to park in the parking lot of a shopping mall costs P40.00 for the first two hours and an
extra P10.00 for each hour (or a fraction of it) after that. If you park for more than twelve hours,
you instead pay a flat rate of P200.00. Represent your parking fee using the function p(t) where t
is the number of hours you parked in the mall.

6. The SSG Organization plans to sell cupcakes to raise a fund. A bakery charges them P15.00 for
the first 100 cupcakes. After the first 100 cupcakes they purchase up to 150 cupcakes the bakery
reduces the price to P13.50 per cupcake. After they purchased150 cupcakes, the price lower to
P10.00 per cupcake. Write a function that models this situation.

7. A computer shop charges 20 pesos per hour (or a fraction of an hour) for the first two hours and
an additional 10 pesos per hour for each succeeding hour. Represent your computer rental fee
using the function R(t) where t is the number of hours you spent on the computer.