Question

A farmer harvested 35 acres of corn and 20 acres of beans. Animals ate 1/8 of the corn he originally planted. how many acres of corn did the farmer plant?

Answer 1

now..... we're assuming here, that the farmer planted "more than 35 acres" of corn, so, he planted some amount of corn, but he only harvested a fraction of it, which is 35 acres, and we're assuming he gave those 35 acres of harvested corn to the livestock, so the animals ate 1/8 of the corn he planted.

That means, if the animals ate 1/8 of the corn, and the farmer gave the animals the whole of the harvested corn, then we can say that the 35 acres is just 1/8 of what he planted.

now, if 35 is 1/8, what is the whole? namely 8/8?


`\bf \begin{array}{ccll} \stackrel{corn}{amount}&\stackrel{corn}{fraction}\\ \text{\textemdash\textemdash\textemdash}&\text{\textemdash\textemdash\textemdash}\\ 35&(1)/(8)\\\\ c&(8)/(8) \end{array}\implies \cfrac{35}{c}=\cfrac{\quad (1)/(8)\quad }{(8)/(8)}\implies \cfrac{35}{c}=\cfrac{1}{8}\cdot \cfrac{8}{8} \\\\\\ \cfrac{35}{c}=\cfrac{1}{8}\implies 280=c`