Question

There are four types of flowers in Mrs. Elliott’s garden, 1/2 of the flowers are red, 1/4 of them are purple. Of the remaining flowers, ⅔ are pink, there are 4 yellow flowers. How many flowers are there in Mrs. Elliott's garden?

Answer 1

48 flowers.

Explanation:

You know that there are red, purple, pink, and yellow flowers in the garden. Since you know that 1/2 are red and 1/4 are purple, the pink and yellow flowers (combined) must make up the remaining 1/4 of the garden.

You're told in the problem that of this remaining 1/4, 2/3 are pink. That must mean 1/3 are yellow. There are twice as many pink flowers as yellow flowers.

The problem also says there are 4 yellow flowers. This means that 1/3 (of the remaining 1/4) is equal to 4.

To figure out how many pink flowers there are, you can multiple 4 x 2. There must be 8 pink flowers.

To find the total number of pink and yellow flowers, add 8 + 4. There are 12 pink and yellow flowers.

Remember that the pink and yellow flowers must make up the remaining 1/4 of the garden. If 12 flowers is equal to 1/4 of the garden, then you can multiply by 12 x 4 to figure how many flowers are in the entire garden: 48 flowers.