a ribbon is 5 feet long. It is cut into 6 pieces. How long is each piece? Round your answer to the nearest tenth.

Question

A ribbon is 5 feet long. It is cut into 6 pieces. How is each piece? Round your answer to nearest tenth

 

Answer 1

Greetings, Jessica! There are 2 different ways you can solve this problem and you'll get the same answer.

 

To help you visualize what you have to do, it might be easiest to translate your problem to a unit that easier to use.

 

Since you only have a ribbon 5 feet long, but you must cut it into 6 pieces, you know it won't even be 1 foot long.

 

One way to solve the problem would be to translate your 5-foot ribbon into a ribbon divided into inches.

 

1 foot = 12 inches

 

To find out how many inches long your ribbon is, you'll need to multiply the number of feet by 12.

 

Once you know that, then you can more easily divide it by 6. This will tell you how many inches each ribbon is.

 

Careful! the answer is to be put into feet so once you know how many inches long the ribbon is, you must then divide by 12 to get the correct answer in feet. Don't forget to round to the nearest tenth.

 

 

Another way to solve the problem is to simply divide the 5 feet by the number 6 and then round your number to the nearest tenth. It may be harder to visualize the answer this way, but you will get the same answer as if you translated your ribbon into inches and then divided by 12.

 

Good luck! I hope this helps!

Answer 2

Does the answer need to be in feet or can it be in another measurement?

A 5-foot ribbon is also a 60-inch ribbon. 1 foot = 12 inches ... 5*12= 60

 

Because it is cut into 6 pieces (which I assume are equal? Although not stated...) that would mean each piece is 10 in.

 

60/6=10

 

However if it needs to be in feet, then each piece is 10/12 or 5/6 ... 5/6 ? .8333333333 ... to the nearest 10th = .8 ft