Question

A shipping container will be used to transport several 40-kilogram crates across the country by rail. The greatest weight that can be loaded into the container is 23500 kilograms. Other shipments weighing 12100 kilograms have already been loaded into the container. Write and solve an inequality which can be used to determine xx, the number of 40-kilogram crates that can be loaded into the shipping container

Answer 1

To determine the number of 40-kilogram crates that can be loaded into the shipping container, subtract the weight of the already loaded shipments from the maximum weight that can be loaded. The inequality to represent the situation is 40x + 12100 ≤ 23500, where x is the number of crates. Solving the inequality gives x ≤ 285.

Step-by-step explanation:

To determine the number of 40-kilogram crates that can be loaded into the shipping container, we need to subtract the weight of the already loaded shipments from the maximum weight that can be loaded. Let xx be the number of crates.

The weight of the already loaded shipments is 12100 kilograms. Since each crate weighs 40 kilograms, the weight of xx crates is 40x. The inequality to represent the situation is:

40x + 12100 ≤ 23500

To solve this inequality, we subtract 12100 from both sides:

40x ≤ 11400

Finally, we divide both sides by 40 to isolate x:

x ≤ 285

Therefore, the number of crates that can be loaded into the shipping container is at most 285.