Levon has 45 minutes until he needs to leave for his piano lesson. He spends 27 minutes watching an episode of his favorite TV show. Then he wants to play a game on his tablet. At most, how long can Levon spend playing the game before he need to leave?

Question

Graph the inequality.

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12 14 16 18 20 22 24

Answer 1

First, we need to subtract the time Levon spent watching TV from the total time he has available:

45 minutes - 27 minutes = 18 minutes

This means Levon has 18 minutes left to do other things before he needs to leave for his piano lesson. We want to find out how long he can play his tablet game, so let's use the variable "g" for that:

g ≤ 18

This is our inequality. It says that "g" (the time Levon can play his game) must be less than or equal to 18 minutes, which is the time he has left before he needs to leave.

Now, let's graph this on a number line. We'll use open circles to show that Levon can't play exactly for 18 minutes, but he can play for any amount of time less than that:

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12 14 16 18 20 22 24
g ≤ 18

The shaded area to the left of the open circle represents all the possible times Levon can play his game, from 0 minutes up to (but not including) 18 minutes.