Question

Write an inequality to represent the following scenario: Hagrid’s goal at the National Hotdog Eating Contest is to consume 32 hotdogs in 3 minutes. The number of hotdogs (h) he can actually consume in 3 minutes varies no more than 5 hotdogs.

Answer 1

27<HD<37

Explanation:

Variance is the noun form of varies. If you change the sentence around so that you are using varies, it will come out the same way as variance does. It's all in the grammar.

So what the question is saying is that Hagrid normally will eat 32 hot dogs in 3 minutes (you have to be kidding me -- no one can do that) with a variation (or difference) of 5 hot dogs on either side of 32.

So the high and low he can eat in 3 minutes is

27 < HD < 37

which means that in 3 minutes he can eat anywhere from 27 to 37 hot dogs.

What I am going to say next is meant in the gentlest way possible. It's not criticism. It's just advice.

You did extremely well to pin point what your problem was. That will take you a long way in any course. It gives us (those of us that offer answers including your teachers) a clue (a huge clue) to what you don't understand and we can try to fix it. So you did exactly the right thing that a student should do. You pointed right at the problem.

The fix for this problem is to look up the meaning of the word you don't understand. Dictionaries may not have an understandable answer (often they define a word with a more complicated word), but now you are much better equipped to ask again.

Answer 2

To find the value of a variance add and subtract the variance from the original number.

The original number is 32 hot dogs.

The variance is 5 hot dogs.

32-5 = 27

32 + 5 = 37

This means he needs to eat between 27 and 37 hot dogs.

he inequality with variance is written as: 27 < h < 37