Expert: Bobby Soltani - 9/30/2004

Question
I'm having problems with these questions on my homework and im only in 5th grade and i dont understand how to do this quite yet so can you please help me. You have to translate the following into symbols.

1. a is less than or equal to -5
2. b is greater than or equal to 3
3. 14 is greater than 5 and 5 is greater than 3

Answer
Hi Lindsey,

For these problems you just write them as you would read them but you use the following symbols:

= is equals
< is less than
> is greater than
<= is less than or equal to ( actually, if you are not using a computer, you just write a "is less than sign with a straight line under it.
>= is greater than or equal to

just read the sentence from left to right and plug in the symbols above.

1. a <= -5

2. b >= 3

3. 14 > 5 > 3

That's it.  Let me know if you have any questitons.

Good Luck.

Bobby