A student wants to purchase some new school supplies. He wants to buy a calculator that costs $24 and some notebooks for school. Each notebook costs $2. The student only has $37 to spend.

Question

Let n represent the number of notebooks that he buys.

Which inequality describes this scenario?

Responses

24 n plus 2 is greater than or equal to 37

2 n plus 24 is less than or equal to 37

A. 24n + 2 > 37

B. 37 < 24n + 2

C. 2n + 24 < 37

D. 37 > 2n + 24

Answer 1

To create an inequality that describes this scenario, we start by identifying the total costs.

The cost of the calculator is $24, and the cost of each notebook is $2. If the student buys \( n \) notebooks, the total cost for the notebooks would be \( 2n \).

The total cost the student incurs can then be expressed as: \[ \text{Total cost} = \text{Cost of calculator} + \text{Cost of notebooks} = 24 + 2n \]

The student has a budget of $37, so we need to express the condition that the total cost cannot exceed this budget, which gives us the inequality: \[ 24 + 2n \leq 37 \]

This inequality can be rearranged to more clearly match the answer options: \[ 2n + 24 \leq 37 \]

Therefore, the correct response that describes this scenario is:

B. \( 2n + 24 \leq 37 \)