Section: Math

52) A banquet hall charges a base price of x dollars for one hour of rental time. A sales tax of a certain percentage is applied to the base price, and an untaxed deposit is added. If the total amount is paid at the time of the purchase for one night is given by the expression 1.085x+18, then what is the sales tax, expressed as a percentage of the base price?

1. 0.085%
2. 1.085%
3. 8.5%
4. 18%

Answer 3 is correct. x is what it costs for one hour of rental time in dollars, so it must be multiplied by the hours rented and the sales tax rate to get an accurate depiction of cost per unit of time (hour - 1.085 is 1 hour+.085 sales tax rate, hence the sales tax, when multiplied by 100 for percent conversion, is 8.5%.