Need help with inequality. If pet store sells at least 3 times more male birds as female birds, and x represents female birds and y represents male birds. Would the inequality be written as y >=3 ? Why or why not? Thanks

No, it would be

y >= x+3

You have to include the number of female birds. There are at least three more males than that.

To write the inequality correctly, let's break down the information given.

The statement says that the pet store sells at least 3 times more male birds than female birds. This means that the number of male birds sold should be greater than or equal to three times the number of female birds sold.

Let's denote the number of female birds as x and the number of male birds as y. Using this notation, the inequality can be written as:

y >= 3x

Here's an explanation of why:

1. The symbol ">=" is used because we need to include the case where the number of male birds is exactly three times the number of female birds. If we used ">" (greater than), it would exclude the case when the number of male birds is equal to three times the number of female birds.

2. We multiply "3" by "x" because the number of male birds must be three times the number of female birds. This represents the condition mentioned in the statement.

Therefore, the correct inequality is y >= 3x, not y >= 3.