a. The bridge can hold at most 1000 pounds. This tells you everyone's accumulative weight needs to be less than or equal to 1000. The problem does not give your friend's weight... yet. Let x = your friend's weight.
Your friend's weight (x) plus your weight (156) plus everyone else's weight (675) must be less than or equal to (≤) 1000 pounds.
x + 156 + 675 ≤ 1000
Combine like terms (the constants) to simplify and get your final inequality:
x + 831 ≤ 1000
b. Now, we find out your friend weighs 182 pounds. x = 182. We plug this into the above equation. If it results in a true statement, then you both can walk across the bridge.
182 + 831 ≤ 1000
1013 ≤ 1000, is not a true statement.
No. You both cannot walk across the bridge as is because the weight of the people on the bridge would be 13 pounds over the weight limit.
