Help with this question

Question

Owen and his brother made 9/10 of a gallon of lemonade to sell at their lemonade stand. They divided the lemonade equally among 3 paper cups. How much lemonade was in each paper cup?

Answer 1

Kalynn,

If we think about this as:

9/10 divided by 3

We can replace the word "divided" with a division symbol:

9/10 ÷ 3

When dealing with fractions, I think it's easier to write both numbers as fractions:

9/10 ÷ 3/1

Dividing by a fraction is the same as multiplying by the reciprocal of the divisor

(In less mathy jargon, flip the second fraction over and change it to a multiplication problem):

9/10 × 1/3

Multiply the numerators (the two numbers on the top): 9×1

And multiply the denominators (the two numbers on the bottom): 10×3

Which gives you the fraction:

9/30

Which reduces to the final answer:

3/10

(An alternate way to reduce this fraction is to reduce the 9 in the numerator and the 3 In the denominator BEFORE the multiplication):

9/10 × 1/3

reduces to: 3/10 × 1/1

which results in

3×1 in the numerator

10×1 in the denominator

with the final answer

3/10

Hopefully, that helps!

:-)