Hi AAPL,
We're told that at a certain company, each employee has a salary grade S that is at least 1 and at most 5. Each employee receives an hourly wage P, in dollars, determined by the formula P = 9.50 + 0.25(S - 1). We're asked how many more dollars an hour an employee with a salary grade of 5 receives than an employee with a salary grade of 1 does. Certain questions simply require that you 'plug in' the given information and work through a bit of Arithmetic - and that's all that this really is.
To start, you might recognize that the "9.50" is irrelevant, since we're asking for the DIFFERENCE in hourly pay - meaning that we just have to focus on the last part of the calculation (re: the "0.25(S - 1)").
Level 1: (0.25)(1 - 1) = 0.... or a total hourly pay of $9.50
Level 5: (0.25)(5 - 1) = 1.00... or a total hourly pay of $10.50
The difference is $1.00 per hour.
Final Answer:
GMAT assassins aren't born, they're made,
Rich