Grandma is removing weeds from her garden. She estimates that there are 250 weeds in the garden at the moment, and she can remove weeds at a rate of 5 per minute. At this rate how many minutes (m) will it take Grandma to only have 30 weeds remaining in the garden?

Question

Equation:

Solution:

Answer in words

Answer 1

Let m be the number of minutes it takes Grandma to remove 30 weeds from her garden.
Since Grandma can remove 5 weeds per minute, in m minutes, she will remove 5m weeds.
Thus, the equation to represent this situation is 250 - 5m = 30.
To solve for m, subtract 250 from both sides of the equation to get -5m = -220.
Dividing both sides by -5 gives m = 44.
Therefore, it will take Grandma 44 minutes to remove all but 30 weeds from her garden.