Melinda rents paddle boats down at the pier. she uses 5.5 feet of nylon rope to tie off each boat. she started with 80 feet of rope. after securing all the boats, she was left with more than 3 feet of rope. how many boats did melinda tie off?

First write an expression for the problem:
b= boats
80-5.5b > 3
-5.5b > -77
(divide both sides of the in equality by -5.5)
NOTE: when you divide in equalities by negatives you MUST FLIP THE SIGN!

b < 14

boats= less than 14 boats in order to have greater than 3ft of rope left.

 
Melinda must have tied off less than 14 boats.

Let me know if you still have any questions!