Probability

Question

Jack has 15 blue marbles and 9 red marbles. He wants to share the marbles with his friends. What is the maximum number of friends Jack can share with if each friend will get the same amount of blue marbles and the same amount of red marbles?

Answer 1

In this problem, you should look for common factors of 15 (blue marbles) & 9 (red marbles):

 

15 = 1, 3, 5, 15

9 = 1, 3, 9

 

The only common factors are 1 & 3, so he can divide his marbles equally among either 1 or 3 friends.

 

Because the problem specified sharing these marbles with the "maximum number of friends", Jack must choose 3 friends with whom to share his marbles under the given conditions.