Answer: 0 tons ≤ M ≤ 8 tons
Explanation:
The symbols use in inequalities are such that:
a < b (a is strictly smaller than b)
a > b (a is strictly larger than b)
a ≥ b (a is smaller than or equal to b)
a ≤ b (a is larger than or equal to b)
In this case, we have the situation:
"The dump truck can only hold 8 tons, maximum"
Then if M represents the mass that the dump truck can hold, we know that the maximum possible value of M is 8 tons.
Then we would have this written as:
M is smaller than or equal to 8 tons.
or:
M ≤ 8 tons.
We also can add that M needs to be larger than zero (we can not have a negative mass) then this is written as:
0 tons ≤ M ≤ 8 tons.