Question

Under her cell phone plan, Leah pays a flat cost of $42 per month and $4 per

gigabyte. She wants to keep her bill at $48.80 per month. Write and solve an
equation which can be used to determine g, the number of gigabytes of data Leah can
use while staying within her budget.

Answer 1

We know that she pays a flat cost of 42, so that will be our constant. We can use 4g to represent how she pays $4 per gigabyte used. Our equation will be 4g + 42 = 48.80.

Our goal is to isolate g. We can do that by subtracting 42 from both sides. This gives us 4g = 6.8. Then, we need to divide both sides by 4. This gives us g = 1.7.

The equation we can use to represent this situation is 4g + 42 = 48.80, and she can only spend 1.7 gigabytes or less to stay within her budget. (I am not sure if 1.7 should be rounded, but if so, it should be rounded down to 1.)