Question

It costs Jules $0.25 to send a text message from her cell phone. She has already spent $8 in textmessages this month. If she has a total of $15 that she can spend this month on text messages,write and solve an inequality that will give the greatest number of text messages that she cansend. Interpret the solution. Write the inequality. **

Answer 1

Given:

The cost per message is $0.25.

Jules spent $8 already, and she has a total of $15 this month.

Let x be the number of massages.

The number of messages sent in $8 is,

$\begin{gathered} 0.25x=8 \\ x=\frac{8}{0.25} \\ x=32 \end{gathered}$

The inequality for total massages can be sent in $15 is written as,

$\begin{gathered} 0.25x\leq15 \\ \text{Divide by 0.25} \\ \frac{0.25x}{0.25}\leq\frac{15}{0.25} \\ x\leq60 \end{gathered}$

For $15, Jules can send a maximum of 60 massages.

But as she already spent $8 now, her balance now is 15 - 8= $7.

So, in the remaining balance, she can send,

$\begin{gathered} 60-32=28 \\ \text{Verify} \\ 0.25x=7 \\ x=\frac{7}{0.25} \\ x=28 \end{gathered}$

Answer: Jules can send a maximum of 60 massages for $15.

And after spending $8, she can send a maximum of 28 massages.