We are given information about the number of hours we can work at two different jobs. Let's start by organizing the information into . First, let's assign to the hours worked at the different jobs.
- Hours worked mowing lawns: x
- Hours worked at the clothing store: y
We are given the rate of pay for each job,
$12 an hour for mowing lawns and
$10 an hour at the clothing store. Also, we need to make at least
$350 per week. We can rewrite this using an inequality.
12x+10y≥350
Next, we know that we can work no more than
35 hours in the week. Let's rewrite this as an inequality.
x+y≤35
The last bit of information is that we need to work at least
10 hours at the clothing store. We will rewrite this as an inequality as well.
y≥10
We now have three inequalities that we will need to graph.
⎩⎪⎪⎨⎪⎪⎧12x+10y≥350x+y≤35y≥10(I)(II)(III)
Let's start with writing the for the first . We need to isolate the
y-variable.
12x+10y=350
10y=350−12x
y=35−1.2x
y=-1.2x+35
We can now graph the boundary line. Since the inequality is , we will use a solid line. Also, since it is impossible to work a negative number of hours, we will only consider positive values of
x and
y.
Now, we can determine where to shade using a test point. We will use the point
(0,0) for simplicity. Let's substitute the values into the original inequality.
12x+10y≥350
12(0)+10(0)≥?350
0≱350 ×
Since
(0,0) made the inequality false, we will shade the that
does not contain the point.
We will follow the same process to graph the other two inequalities. To graph the second inequality,
x+y≤35, we need to isolate the
y-variable by subtracting
x from both sides.
x+y=35⇔y=-x+35
Since the inequality is non-strict, the line will be solid. We will use the same test point to determine which region we will shade.
Since we arrived at a true statement, we will shade the region that
does contain the point.
Finally, we can graph the third inequality,
y≥10. Since the inequality only has a
y-variable, we know that the boundary line will be . We will use the same test point to determine where we will shade.
Since
(0,0) made the inequality false, we will shade the region that
does not contain the test point.
The solution set is where the shading of all three of the inequalities overlap.
Each point that is in the shaded region represents the possible hours that can be worked at each job. For example, the point (13,21) indicates that we can work 13 hours mowing lawns and 21 hours at the clothing store. This is just one of the possible solutions.