Solve.
-When making a long distance call from a certain pay phone, the first three minutes of a call cost $2.75. After that, each additional minute or portion of a minute of that call costs $0.40. Use an inequality to find the
Maximum number of minutes one can call long distance for $3.55.
A)at most 2 minutes
B)at most 9 minutes
C)at most 5 minutes
D)at most 1 minutes

Question

Quizplus · Accepted Answer

Let's assume that x is the number of additional minutes after the first three minutes. Then, the total cost of the call can be expressed as:

2.75 + 0.40x

We are given that the total cost of the call cannot exceed $3.55. Therefore, we can write the inequality:

2.75 + 0.40x ≤ 3.55

Simplifying this inequality, we get:

0.40x ≤ 0.80

x ≤ 2

This means that the total number of additional minutes cannot exceed 2, in order for the total cost to be at most $3.55. However, we also need to add the initial 3 minutes to get the total number of minutes. So, the maximum number of minutes that one can call long distance for $3.55 is:

3 + 2 = 5

Therefore, the answer is C) at most 5 minutes. Let's start by using the given information to write an inequality.
First three minutes cost $2.75, so we can subtract that from our total budget of $3.55 to see how much we have left for the additional minutes:
$3.55 - $2.75 = $0.80
We know that each additional minute costs $0.40, so we can divide our remaining budget by the cost per minute to see how many additional minutes we can afford:
$0.80 ÷ $0.40 = 2
Finally, we add the three initial minutes to our total additional minutes to find the maximum total number of minutes we can afford:
2 additional minutes + 3 initial minutes = 5 total minutes
Therefore, the answer is choice C, at most 5 minutes.

Solve. -When Making a Long Distance Call from a Certain Pay