Alicia and her father went food shopping. Oranges were priced at $0.27 each. Alicia and her father have $5.00. How many oranges can they buy?

Question

Alicia and her father went food shoppin.  Oranges were priced at $0.27 each.  Alicia and her father have $5.00.  How many oranges can they buy?                                      

 

Division Eaquation: ______ divided by _____ = ______

 

Answer: _____ 

Answer 1

Since each orange is $0.27, then the total cost cannot exceed $5.00.  So we need to find out how many times 0.27 can go into 5 without going over.  We perform 5 divided by 0.27.   Dividing decimals are tricky, so we are going to convert the decimal to a fraction.  We know that 0.27 converted to a fraction is 27/100.

 

5 ÷ 0.27 =

 

5 ÷ (27/100)

 

 

When dividing by a fraction, we multiply by the reciprocal of the fraction. 

 

5 × (100 / 27) = 500 / 27

 

500/27 is the equivalent to 5 ÷ 0.27.

 

 

Next, we divide 500 by 27 using long division.

 

 

         18

     _______

27 | 500

       27

      ______

       230

       216

      _____

         14

 

 

As you can see, the quotient is 18 with a remainder of 14.  This means that 0.27 goes into 5 only 18 times without going over. 

 

So Alicia and her father can buy no more than 18 oranges.