Eli 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. Eli only has $37 to spend.

Let n represent the number of notebooks that Eli buys.

Which inequality describes this scenario?

A. 37 ≤ 2n + 24
B. 2n + 24 > 37
C. 37n < 2n + 24
D. 2n + 24 ≤ 37
E. 24n + 2 ≤ 37

1 answer

To determine the appropriate inequality for Eli's situation, we need to set up the equation based on his budget and expenses.

Eli's total expenditure will be the cost of the calculator plus the cost of the notebooks. This can be expressed as:

  • Cost of the calculator: $24
  • Cost of each notebook: $2
  • Number of notebooks: n

Thus, the total cost can be expressed as: \[ \text{Total Cost} = 2n + 24 \]

Eli has a maximum budget of $37. Therefore, we want to ensure that the total cost does not exceed his budget, which translates into the following inequality:

\[ 2n + 24 \leq 37 \]

This corresponds to option D.

So the correct answer is:

D. 2n + 24 ≤ 37