Answer: To express -85.85 as a rational number, we need to write it in the form of a fraction (p/q), where p and q are integers and q is not equal to zero.
Since -85.85 is a decimal number, we can convert it to a fraction by considering it as a negative decimal number and expressing it as a fraction with a negative numerator.
To convert a decimal number to a fraction, we count the number of decimal places after the decimal point and put the decimal number over a denominator of 1 followed by the same number of zeros as the number of decimal places.
-85.85 has two decimal places after the decimal point, so we can write it as:
-85.85 = -85.85/1.00
Now, to simplify the fraction, we can remove the decimal point and the zeros in the denominator:
-85.85 = -8585/100
So, the rational number equivalent to -85.85 is -8585/100.