A rental company charges $15 plus $4 per hour to rent a bicycle. If Margie does not want to spend more than $27 for her rental, write and solve an inequality to find how many hours she can rent the bicycle and nor spend more than $27.
15 + 4x ≤ 27
Solve for x.
To find how many hours Margie can rent the bicycle without spending more than $27, we need to set up an inequality.
Let's first define the variables:
x = number of hours Margie rents the bicycle
The rental company charges $4 per hour, so the cost of renting the bicycle for x hours is 4x dollars.
Margie also has to pay an initial charge of $15.
To find the total cost, we sum up the initial charge and the cost incurred per hour:
Total Cost = Initial Charge + (Cost per Hour * Number of Hours)
Total Cost = $15 + ($4 * x)
According to the problem, Margie does not want to spend more than $27. Therefore, we can write the inequality as follows:
Total Cost ≤ $27
$15 + ($4 * x) ≤ $27
Now we can solve this inequality to find the value of x:
$15 + ($4 * x) ≤ $27
Subtract $15 from both sides of the inequality:
$4 * x ≤ $27 - $15
$4 * x ≤ $12
Divide both sides of the inequality by $4:
x ≤ $12 / $4
x ≤ 3
Hence, Margie can rent the bicycle for a maximum of 3 hours and not spend more than $27.