Question

5) you need to buy some pencils and an eraser. You can spend no more than $5. The eraser costs $1 and the pencils cost $0.25 each. a) Write an inequality to represent the situation. Be sure to define your variable. b) Solve the inequality to find the maximum number of pencils you can buy.

Answer 1

Let x = # of pencils, and let y = # of erasers.

$0.25x + y \leq 5$

Since you are going to buy 1 eraser, you can subtract one from both sides:
$0.25x \leq 4$

Then, just solve for x:
$x = 16$

Answer 2

You can buy 1 eraser and 16 pencils