Question

Abner wants to create a shopping budget where he spends less than $80 per month on clothes. He also wants to spend at least three times as much on school clothes as on gym clothes. Let g represent the amount Abner spends on gym clothes per month, and let s represent the amount he spends on school clothes per month. Abner’s budget is represented by the graph below. Which statement is true?

A)Abner can spend $50 per month on school clothes and $10 per month on gym clothes and stay within his budget.
B)Abner can spend $10 per month on school clothes and $50 per month on gym clothes and stay within his budget.
C)Abner can spend $20 per month on school clothes and $60 per month on gym clothes and stay within his budget.
D)Abner can spend $60 per month on school clothes and $20 per month on gym clothes and stay within his budget.

Answer 1

The answer is (A) Abner can spend $50 per month on school clothes and $10 per month on gym clothes and stay within his budget.

Explanation:

Answer 2

D) Abner can spend $60 per month on school clothes and $20 per month on gym clothes and stay within his budget.

Explanation:

In the problem it states that Abner will spend 3 times more on (s)school clothes than (g) gym clothes.

So it would appear as s ≥ 3g.

If we plug in $60 as s (school clothes) and $20 as g (gym clothes), the statement is true.

60 ≥ 3(20)

60 ≥ 60. These numbers make the linear system true.

If you have trouble with this, an easy way to find this answer is simply creating the linear system that represents the problem, (he will buy 3 times more school clothes than gym clothes) s ≥ 3g and plug in each variable from the answer choices until you find the variables that make the linear system true.