One-fifth of a certain number is 8. What is one-fourth of that number?

Question

One-fifth of a certain number is 8. What is one-fourth of that number?

Answer 1

Hi Clarissa,

I always like to write things out to help me better visualize the problem, and possibly break the problem into parts.

First I would create an equation.

i. One-fifth of a certain number is 8.

1/5 x = 8 (1/5 of x is 8) => x = 40 (multiply both sides of the equation by 5)

ii. What is one-fourth of that number?

Since x = 40 from the early statement. Now we can solve the second question.

1/4 (40) = 10

Answer:10

Please feel free to reach out to me to help clarify anything.

Thanks,

Richmond

Answer 2

1/5 of a number = 8 so 5 times 8 = the number or 40. Let x= the number x/5=8 Multiply both sides of that equation by 5 to get x=40. 1/4 of 40 is 10. 40/4=10 one-fourth of the original number is 10. 1/4 is bigger than 1/5, so 1/4 of a number should be larger than 1/5 of a number. 10 is larger than 8.