Bob bought a broken motor scooter, repaired it, and sold the scooter for $130. that was $50 less than 1.5 times what he paid for it. which equation can be used to find, p, the amount of money bob initially paid for the broken scooter?

For this case, the first thing we must do is define variables:
 c = sale price
 p = the amount of money Bob initially paid for the broken scooter
 We write then the linear equation that adapts to the problem:
 c = 50-1.5p
 For c = 130 we have:
 130 = 1.5p-50
 We cleared p:
 p = (130 + 50) / (1.5)
 p = 120 $
 
 the amount of money Bob initially paid for the broken scooter was:
 p = 120 $