Question

Latrell bought 4 bags of powdered sugar. He got a total of 5 1/2 cups of sugar. How many cups of sugar were in each bag?

Answer 1

so all 4 bags of sugar yielded 5 and 1/2 cups..... well.. how many in each one? well, let's split the 5 and 1/2 evenly in 4 pieces.


`\bf \stackrel{mixed}{5}(1)/(2)\implies \cfrac{5\cdot 2+1}{2}\implies \stackrel{improper}{\cfrac{11}{2}}\\\\ -------------------------------\\\\ \cfrac{\quad(11)/(2) \quad }{4}\implies \cfrac{\quad(11)/(2) \quad }{(4)/(1)}\implies \cfrac{11}{2}\cdot \cfrac{1}{4}\implies \cfrac{11}{8}\implies \stackrel{cups}{1(3)/(8) }`