Question

How are unit rates useful?

Answer 1

Unit rates are useful because they allow you to make direct comparisons. For example, you have your choice between two bottles of ketchup.

Explanation:

Answer 2

Unit rates are great for making comparisons between certain things. For example if I was at a grocery store and I wanted to buy steak and I saw 10 ounces for $18 and 12 ounces for $22, I could determine which is a better buy and how much I am saving.

Let me show another example.

70 students in 5 classes = ___ students per class

"Per class" means in one class so we can rewrite the given statement using fractions.

`(70-students)/(5-classes) =(X -students)/(1-class)`

To find out what goes in the blank, notice that we have a 1 in the denominator of our second fraction so we want to find a fraction that is equivalent to 70/5 that has a 1 in the denominator.

If we divide the numerator and the denominator of 70/5 by 5, we get the equivalent fraction 14/1 or
`(14-students)/(1-class)`.

This means that the unit rate for 70 students in 5 classes is 14 students per class.

Unit rates can also be useful for solving the types of problems that I showed above.