Answer:
24 pencils, or 2 boxes of pencils
Explanation:
We need to find the least common multiple of 8 and 12
notice that 8 has a factorisation of 2*2*2 (or 2^3)
12 has one of 3*2*2 (or 2^2)
multiple them together:
(3*2*2)*(2*2*2)
but since we need the lease common multiple, we can cancel out one repeat from the first set of numbers in the paranthasis
in this case, the number 2 repeats two times
so after removing two 2s, we get:
(3)*(2*2*2), which is equal to 3*8, or 24 pencils