Final answer:
To accommodate everyone at the graduation party, one would need to rent 3 round tables and 4 rectangular tables. Using the round tables, 24 people can be seated (3 tables x 8 people each), and using the rectangular tables, 48 people can be seated (4 tables x 12 people each), making up the total of 56 guests.
Step-by-step explanation:
To answer this question, we need to calculate the number of tables needed to seat 56 people considering that round tables seat 8 people and rectangular tables seat 12. We can use a combination of round and rectangular tables to accommodate everyone comfortably.
First, we divide 56 by the number of people that a rectangular table can seat, which is 12. 56 ÷ 12 = 4 remainder 8. This calculation tells us we can fit 4 rectangular tables with 8 people left who wouldn't have a seat. To seat these remaining 8 people, we would need exactly 1 round table since a round table can seat 8 people.
Therefore, the correct answer is: b) 3 round tables and 4 rectangular tables. We arrive at this by seating 36 people at 3 rectangular tables (3 tables x 12 people/table = 36 people) and then seating the remaining 20 people at 3 round tables (20 people ÷ 8 people/table = 2.5, which we round up to 3 tables).