Question

Under her cell phone plan, Ariana pays a flat cost of $43 per

month and $4 per gigabyte. She wants to keep her bill under

$60 per month. Which inequality can be used to determine g,

the maximum number of gigabytes Ariana can use while

staying within her budget?

Answer 1

For this problem, you first need to come up with a way to represent the cost using algebra. Since she pays 43$ per month plus 4 per gigabyte, it must be 43 + 4g. (flat cost plus gigabyte-usage cost) We must then turn that into an inequality. Since she wants to stay under 60$, her monthly cost must be <60. Putting it all together, the inequality would be: 43 + 4g < 60.
To find the max number of gigabytes she can use without going over, we need to do 60-43 to make it 4g < 17. This is to isolate the variable, which must be done to continue. After that, we can do 17/4, which is 4.25. However, her goal is to stay under, so she must use less than 4.25 gigabytes per month (or if you need a whole number, then she can use up to 4 gigabytes per month).
Hope this helps