Question

A church auditorium can seat 250 people at most. If there are currently 162 people seated in the auditorium, how many more can be seated? Write an inequality then solve it. Use n for your variable. Can someone please help I'm really stuck. ​

Answer 1

88 more people

Explanation:

Let the additional number of people that can be seated be n.

Maximum capacity of auditorium= 250

This means that the amount of people in the auditorium can be exactly 250 or less than that. Thus, the inequality sign used is '≤', which can be read as 'less than or equal to'.

Since there are already 162 people in the auditorium,

162 +n ≤ 250

Subtract 162 from both sides:

n ≤ 250 -162

n ≤ 88

Thus, 88 more people can be seated.

Note:

An equation with an inequality symbol is solved the same way as one with an equal sign, except when dividing both sides of the equation by a negative number (i.e. a number lesser than zero). In that case, the direction of the inequality sign will change:

• > becomes < and vice versa

• ≥ becomes ≤ and vice versa