It costs a company $20 per box to make pocket-sized stuffed animals. The company also has a fixed manufacturing cost of $2300. The owners are trying to calculate their cost for making boxes of animals. a. Identify the variables in this relationship and indicate which would be the independent variable and which would be the dependent variable.

We want to write the cost equation for the company.

First, we know that:

It cost $20 per box.

There is a fixed cost of $2300.

Then the only variable will be the number of boxes that they make.

Where the number of boxes is the independent variable (the company can decide the number of boxes that they make) and the dependent variable will be the cost (the cost changes as the number of boxes change).

Then we can write the cost equation as:

C(x) = $20*x + $2300.

Where x is our variable, the number of boxes made by the company.