Question

Lincoln Middle School plans to collect more than 2000 cans of food in a food drive. So far, 668 cans have been collected. Write an inequality to find the number of cans the school can collect on each of the final 7 days of the drive to meet this goal. Identify what your variable represents.

Answer 1

Let x be the unknown number.

7x + 668 < 2000 => 7x plus 668 is less than 2000

where:
7x => x represents the number of cans to be collected in 7 days
668 is the number of cans already collected.
2000 is the target number of cans.

7x + 668 < 2000
- 668 -668
7x < 1332
÷7 ÷7
x < 190.30
or
x < 190

To check:

7x + 668 < 2000
7(190) + 668 < 2000
1330 + 668 < 2000
1998 < 2000