5th grade word problem

Question

rob had 1/3 of a tray of ziti. he and 5 friends are sharing it. what fraction of the whole tray does each person get?

Answer 1

Read the problem carefully to determine what fraction of the ziti Rob and his friends will have. Rob is sharing with five friends, so we're dealing with six people total.

 

Each of them would get 1/6 of the ziti that covers 1/3 of the tray.

 

To get the answer, you would multiply the numerators and denominators (1/6)*(1/3) to end up with 1/18.

 

 

Answer 2

Each person gets 1/5 of the ziti; but the ziti is only 1/3 of the tray.  So each person gets 1/5 of the 1/3 of the tray, or (1/5)*(1/3) = 1/15th of the tray.

 

Another way to think of it is that you're dividing 1/3 of the tray into 5 pieces, or (1/3)*(1/5) = 1/15