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42 votes
42 votes
A bottle contains 7 8 of a pitcher of water. A cup can hold 3 16 of a pitcher of water. Eve wants to pour all the water from the bottle into some cups. How many cups does Eve need?

User Niyaz
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1 Answer

24 votes
24 votes

Answer:

at least 5

Explanation:

You want to know the number of cups needed to contain 7/8 pitcher of water when each cup holds 3/16 pitcher.

Cups

The number of cups can be found by dividing the water quantity by the amount each cup holds:

(7/8 pitcher)/(3/16 pitcher/cup) = 14/3 cups = 4 2/3 cups

Eve needs at least 5 cups to hold the amount of water in the bottle.

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Additional comment

If every cup is filled to capacity, then the 5th cup will be 2/3 full. The number of cups can be any number greater than or equal to 5.

If you want, you can write an inequality relating the capacity of the cups to the amount of water:

n(3/16) ≥ 7/8

n ≥ 4 2/3 . . . . . . . . . where n is a counting number

n ∈ {5, 6, 7, ...}

This more clearly shows that the number is not restricted to 5.

User Rasheen
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