
One-step inequalities
One-step inequalities are pretty much self-explanatory – they are the type of inequalities that are solvable in a single step. Most of the time, they’ll come in one of these forms:
$$x+b<c$$
$$x+b>c$$
$$x+b \leqslant c$$
$$x+b \geqslant c$$
Since we’ve already learned what inequalities are, and we know the rules and symbols, we’ll concentrate on learning how to solve one-step inequalities through several examples. So, let’s get started!
Example 1:
Find the set of solutions for following inequality:
$$ x + 3 < 5 /+(-3)$$

$ x \varepsilon \left<- \infty, 2\right>$
Let’s try one with multiplication. How would we solve this problem?
Note: If we multiply inequalities by negative number, inequality sign changes.
Example 2:
$\frac{x}{2} \ge -\frac{5}{4}$
Solution:
$\frac{x}{2} \ge -\frac{5}{4} \mid \cdot 2$
$ x \ge -\frac{10}{4}$
$x \ge -\frac{5}{2}$
As we can see, the only thing we needed to do was to multiply the whole inequality by number $2$. The solution of our inequality contains all numbers greater than number $ -\frac{5}{2}$, as well as the number $ -\frac{5}{2}$ itself. This is due to the presence of the “greater than or equal” sign in the inequality. In the form of an interval, the solution would be written down as:
$ x \varepsilon \left[-\frac{5}{2}, \infty\right>,$
and like this on the number line:
Let’s try one example which requires division, but we’ll make it a bit more interesting. How would we solve this problem?
Example 3:
$ – 2x > – 8$
Solution:
$ – 2x > – 8 \mid : (-2)$
$ x < 4$
As we already said, a single division was required to solve this inequality, but in this example we had to remember a very important information: when the variable changes its sign, the inequality sign changes to its opposite as well! So, instead of a “greater than” sign, we ended up with a “less than” sign.
Therefore, the solution in interval form is :
$ x \varepsilon \left<- \infty, 4\right>$
On the number line:
So, this is it for one-step inequalities. If you would like to practice more, feel free to use the worksheets below.