Question

You want to spend at most $12 on a carriage ride. The driver tells you there is an initial charge of $5 plus $.50 per mile. Write and solve an inequality to determine how many miles you can ride.

Answer 1

To determine how many miles you can ride, we can set up an inequality based on the cost of the carriage ride.

The cost of the ride can be written as:
\[
\text{Total Cost} = 5 + 0.50m
\]
where \( m \) is the number of miles.

You want to spend at most $12, so we can set up the inequality:
\[
5 + 0.50m \leq 12
\]

Next, we'll solve for \( m \).

1. Subtract 5 from both sides:
\[
0.50m \leq 12 - 5
\]
\[
0.50m \leq 7
\]

2. Divide both sides by 0.50:
\[
m \leq \frac{7}{0.50}
\]
\[
m \leq 14
\]

This means you can ride at most **14 miles** for a total cost of $12 or less.