A skirt requires 2/5 of a yard of material. How many skirts can be made from 9 yards of material?

Question

Help please I need help on this type of problem

Answer 1

9/(2/5) = 9(5/2) = 45/2 = 22 1/2

 

Since it would be silly to make 1/2 a skirt, we can make 22 skirts.

 

It doesn't ask, but since we'll have material left for 1/2 a skirt, we'll have (1/2)(2/5) = 2/10 = 1/5 of a yard of material left after making 22 skirts.

Answer 2

Whenever you have a question like this, consider a simpler example.  For example, a skirt requires 2 yds of material. How many skirts can be made from 10 yards of material?  You can make 5 (=10/2) skirts.  That is, we need to divide!