What fraction are housebroken?

Question

The fin and fur pet shop has 35 puppies ready for adoption. Twenty of the puppies are housebroken. What fraction are housebroken?

Answer 1

Out of the 35 puppies, 20 are housebroken. This makes:

20/35.

We can simplify this by dividing both the numerator and denominator by 5:

4/7

So 4/7 of the ready puppies are housebroken.

Answer 2

Hi Shanon,

 

A good way to think of fractions is . . .

 

part

total

 

Your total number of puppies is 35,

but only 20 are housebroken, so the fraction is

 

20

35

 

Both the top number ("numerator") and bottom number ("denominator") can be divided by 5, so you do that and get

 

20 ÷ 5 = 4

35 ÷ 5 = 7

 

So, four sevenths of the puppies are housebroken.