Answer:
3/18 gallons/seconds, or 1/6 gallons/seconds
Explanation:
We know that for every 3 gallons, the faucet fills that amount up in 18 seconds. Another way we can write that is "3 gallons for 18 seconds", or 3 gallons / 18 seconds.
Therefore, in terms of gallons to seconds, we can write this as 3 gallons/18 seconds.
One cool thing we can do with fractions is that if we multiply/divide the numerator by the same thing, the fraction is still the same amount, like if we divided by one. For example, if we multiply 1/10 by 10/10 = 1, we would get 10/100 = 1/10, changing the numbers but still keeping the fraction intact. We can apply this concept here to reduce the fraction.
Reducing the fraction means that we want to make the numerator and denominator as small as possible while still keeping them as integers. This means that, if possible, we should divide both the numerator and denominator by their greatest common factor (if it is greater than 1).
To find the greatest common factor, we can list factors and find the greatest one among them.
We have two numbers, 3 and 18.
The factors of 3 are 1 and 3 while the factors of 18 are 1, 2, 3, 6, 9, and 18. The greatest common number among these two is 3. Therefore, we can divide both these numbers by 3 to get
3/18 = 1/6 gallons/seconds as our answer