Question

Help me on this problem:

Karen collects 6/7 qt rainwater. She uses 1/2 of the water to clean her bicycle and uses the remaining water equally for 3 houseplants. What volume of water does she use for each houseplant?

Answer 1

Half of 6/7 is 3/7. To divide a fraction simply multiply across. So with 6/7 divided by 1/2  you would multiply the 6 by the one and the 7 by the 2 and you get 6/14 which reduced is 3/7. With this problem the rest is easy because you have 3/7 and three plants so each plant gets 1/7qt

Answer 2

Karen uses 5/42 of volume of water for each houseplant.

Explanation:

Givens:

• Karen collects
  `(6)/(7)` of rainwater.
• She uses
  `(1)/(2)` of the water to clean her bicycle.

After she uses water to clean the bicycle, the remaining would be the difference between

`(6)/(7)-(1)/(2)=(12-7)/(14)=(5)/(14)`

So, after she cleans her bicycle, the remaining of water would be 5/14.

Now, if she uses this remaining water for 3 houseplants, we just have to divide by 3:

`(5)/(14) / 3=(5)/(14) * (1)/(3)=(5)/(42\alpha )`

Therefore, Karen uses 5/42 of volume of water for each houseplant.