Ramsy has piano lessons every 5 days and baseball games every 3 days. If he had piano lessons and a baseball game today, how many days will it be before he has both a baseball game and piano lessons

Question

Ramsy has piano lessons every 5 days and baseball games every 3 days. If he had piano lessons and a baseball game today, how many days will it be before he has both a baseball game and piano lessons on the same day again?

Answer 1

Hi,

This problem is essentially asking about the common denominator. The easiest way to answer the question is to multiply 5x3 = 15 days. You then check whether these is a smaller common denominator. In this example, there is not, and 15 days is your final answer.

If the question were 2 days and 10 days respectively, you would multiply the two numbers, 2x10 = 20.

The smallest common denominator here is 10, therefore the answer would be 10 days in this second example.

I hope this helps!

Mimi