The ACME company manufactured x brooms per month from

swerve wrote:The ACME company manufactured x brooms per month from January to April, inclusive. On the first of each month, during the following May to December, inclusive, it sold x/2 brooms. At the beginning of production on January 1st, the ACME company had no brooms in its inventory. If storage costs were $1 per month per broom, approximately how much, in terms of x, did the ACME company pay for storage from May 2nd to December 31st, inclusive?

A. $x
B. $3x
C. $4x
D. $5x
E. $14x

Let x=2, implying that 2 brooms are manufactured each month January through April..
Since January through April = 4 months, the number of brooms manufactured = 4*2 = 8.

For the rest of the year, the number brooms sold each month = x/2 = 2/2 = 1.
Implication:
Starting in May, ACME's stock of brooms decreases by 1 every month, as follows:
May = 7 brooms.
June = 6 brooms.
July = 5 brooms.
August = 4 brooms.
September = 3 brooms.
October = 2 brooms.
November = 1 broom.
December = 0 brooms.

Since the cost for storing each broom = $1, the total cost for storing brooms May through December = 7+6+5+4+3+2+1+0 = $28.
Now plug x=2 into the answers to see which yields a total storage cost of $28.
Only E works:
14x = 14*2 = 28.

The correct answer is E.