Question

Joel has just moved to a new town and wants to share plates of baked goods with his

neighbors. He has 20 cookies and 5 brownies to share and wants to split them equally
among the plates with no food left over. What is the greatest number of plates he can make to share

Answer 1

Marta can arrange a maximum of 3 plates.

Solution:

Given, Marta has just moved to a new town and wants to share plates of baked goods with her neighbors.

She has 18 cookies and 15 brownies to share, and wants to split them equally among the plates with no food left over.

We have to find what is the greatest number of plates she can make to share?

Now, let the number of brownies per each plate be n.

Then, number of plates used =

Here, n is number of brownies per plate and is number of cookies per plate.

So, both n and should be whole numbers. Then, for to be whole number 6n must be an multiple of 5.

And to be particular, n should be a multiple of 5 as 6 is not multiple of 5.

So, possible n values are, 5, 10, 15. We need not take above 15 as number of brownies available are 15

In order to arrange in more plates we have to take less count in single plate. Then, n = 5.

Now, number of plates

Hence, Marta can arrange a maximum of 3 plates.