Henry receives a $60.00 gift card to pay for movies online. He uses his gift card to buy 3 movies...

1. TRANSLATE the problem information

• Given information:
  • Gift card value: \(\$60.00\)
  • Cost per purchased movie: \(\$7.50\)
  • Number of movies purchased: 3
  • Cost per rental movie: \(\$1.50\)
• What we need to find: How many movies can be rented with remaining balance

2. INFER the solution approach

• We can't directly calculate rentals from the full gift card amount
• Strategy: First find how much Henry spends → then find remaining balance → then calculate rental capacity
• This is a three-step sequential calculation

3. SIMPLIFY by calculating the purchase cost

• Cost of 3 purchased movies: \(3 \times \$7.50 = \$22.50\)

4. SIMPLIFY by finding the remaining balance

• Remaining balance: \(\$60.00 - \$22.50 = \$37.50\)

5. SIMPLIFY by calculating rental capacity

• Number of movies that can be rented: \(\$37.50 \div \$1.50 = 25\) movies

Answer: B. 25

Why Students Usually Falter on This Problem

Most Common Error Path:

Weak TRANSLATE skill: Students misread the problem structure and try to calculate rentals directly from the full \(\$60.00\) gift card amount, ignoring that \(\$22.50\) was already spent.

Their reasoning: "He has \(\$60.00\) and rentals cost \(\$1.50\) each, so \(\$60.00 \div \$1.50 = 40\) movies"

This leads them to select Choice D (40).

Second Most Common Error:

Poor SIMPLIFY execution: Students correctly understand the three-step process but make arithmetic errors, particularly in the division step.

Common calculation mistakes include:

• Getting \(\$35.50\) instead of \(\$37.50\) for remaining balance
• Incorrectly dividing \(\$37.50\) by \(\$1.50\)

This causes confusion and may lead to guessing among the remaining choices.

The Bottom Line:

This problem tests whether students can break down a multi-step money problem into sequential calculations rather than jumping straight to a final operation. The key insight is recognizing that the gift card balance changes after the initial purchase.