Lincoln middle school plans to collect more than 2000 cans of food in a food drive. so far, 668 cans have been collected. write an inequality to find the number of cans the school can collect on each of the final 7 days of the drive to meet this goal. identify what your variable represents.

Let x be the unknown number.

7x + 668 < 2000     => 7x plus 668 is less than 2000

where: 
7x => x represents the number of cans to be collected in 7 days
668 is the number of cans already collected. 
2000 is the target number of cans.

7x  +  668    <    2000
        - 668           -668
7x                <   1332
÷7                        ÷7
x                  <    190.30
or
x < 190

To check:

7x + 668 < 2000
7(190) + 668 < 2000
1330 + 668 < 2000
1998 < 2000