College

A restaurant has 20 1/2 pounds of bananas to make smoothies. If each smoothie uses 1/8 lb of bananas, how many smoothies can be made?

Answer :

Step-by-step explanation:

I assume you meant :

the restaurant has 20 1/2 pounds of bananas.

one smoothie uses 1/8 pound of bananas.

how many smoothies can be made with the amount of available bananas ?

the answer is as many as the times 1/8 fit into 20 1/2.

so, we actually calculate

(20 1/2) / (1/8)

first we will convert the mixed number into a true fraction :

20 1/2 = 40/2 + 1/2 = 41/2

so we have

41/2 / 1/8

and then, when dividing fractions we have 2 choices (they do both the same, of course, but start looking differently) :

a/b / c/d = a×d / b×c

a/b / c/d = a/b × d/c = a×d / b×c

so,

41/2 / 1/8 = 41×8 / 2×1 = 41×4 = 164

they can make 164 smoothies.