Question

Pencils are sold in boxes of 10. Erasers are sold in boxes of 14. A teacher wants to buy the same number of pencils and erasers. Work out the smallest number of boxes of each item she should buy.

Answer 1

We have;

7 pencil boxes and 5 eraser boxes

Explanation:

To find the smallest number of boxes that can be bought, what we simply do is to find the lowest common multiple of the content of each of the boxes

hence, we are going to find the lowest common multiple of 10 and 14

The lowest common multiple of 10 and 14 is 70

So the smallest number of pencil boxes that can be bought is 70/10 = 7

The smallest number of eraser boxes would be 70/14 = 5