Hello there. To solve this question, we'll have to remember some properties about fractions.
Given the table with the fractions of how many students were buying lunch throughout the week, we need to determine:
17. Did more students buy lunch on Tuesday or on Wednesday?
Knowing the same number of students attended school each day, we can simply find the decimal representations for each of the fractions and decide which day had more students buying lunch than other.
The fractions are:
Monday 1/2 = 0.5
Tuesday 2/5 = 0.4
Wednesday 3/4 = 0.75
Thursday 5/8 = 0.625
Friday 4/6 = 0.67
All these fractions are equal to a decimal number that will be written to its right;
As we can see, Wednesday number is 0.75, that is greater than the Tuesday number of students, therefore the answer to 17 is: More students bought lunch on Wednesday than on Tuesday.
18. Did more students buy lunch on Thursday or Friday?
Again, we compare the decimals: Thursday number is 0.625 and Friday number of students is 0.67, that is greater than the first. Thus, the answer to 18 is: More students bought lunch on Friday than on Thursday.