Amy needs to purchase pencils and notebooks for her students the number of pencils needed is at least twice as many of the number of notebooks the pencils cost 25 cents each in the notebooks cost $4 Amy's budget for these supplies allows for a maximum cost of $100 how do you represent the constraints of this scenario as the system of inequalities where p is the number of pencils and n is the number of notebooks Amy will buy

1 answer

To represent the constraints of Amy's situation using a system of inequalities, we can break down the information provided:

  1. The number of pencils needed is at least twice the number of notebooks.
  2. The cost of pencils is 25 cents each, and the cost of notebooks is $4 each.
  3. Amy has a maximum budget of $100.

Let's define:

  • \( p \) = number of pencils
  • \( n \) = number of notebooks

1. Inequality from the relationship between pencils and notebooks:

The requirement that the number of pencils is at least twice the number of notebooks can be expressed as: \[ p \geq 2n \]

2. Inequality from the budget constraint:

The total cost of the pencils and notebooks must not exceed $100. The cost equation based on the number of items is:

  • Cost of pencils: \( 0.25p \) (since each pencil costs 25 cents)
  • Cost of notebooks: \( 4n \) (since each notebook costs $4)

The budget constraint can be written as: \[ 0.25p + 4n \leq 100 \]

3. Non-negativity constraints:

Since the number of pencils and notebooks cannot be negative, we also have: \[ p \geq 0 \] \[ n \geq 0 \]

Complete System of Inequalities:

Combining all of the above, the system of inequalities representing the scenario is: \[ \begin{align*} p & \geq 2n \quad \text{(1)} \ 0.25p + 4n & \leq 100 \quad \text{(2)} \ p & \geq 0 \quad \text{(3)} \ n & \geq 0 \quad \text{(4)} \end{align*} \]

This system summarizes all the constraints Amy needs to consider when purchasing pencils and notebooks for her students within her budget.