Dividing Fractions Word Problem

U02_L2_T3_we5 Dividing Fractions Word Problem

A baby's T-shirt requires 4/5
yards of fabric, or 4/5 of a

yard of fabric.

How many T-shirts can be
made from 48 yards?

So what we want to do is we
essentially want to say how

many groups of 4/5 of a yard
can we make with 48 yards?

So you literally view this as
we want to take 48 yards and

divide it into groups of 4/5
of a yard, and say how many

groups are there?

Because each of those
groups can make

one to baby's T-shirt.

If you give me 4/5 of a yard,
one baby's T-shirt, so the

number of groups of 4/5 is the
number of babies' T-shirts.

Now, when we divide by a
fraction, we just have to

remember that that is the same
thing, that is completely

equivalent to multiplying
times the

reciprocal of the fraction.

So if we have 4/5 here,
that'll be 5/4, the

reciprocal.

Now, you still might say, hey, I
have a whole number here and

a fraction, and you just have
to remember any whole number

can be written as a fraction.

This is the same thing
as 48/1 times 5/4.

Now, we could just multiply it
out at this point and figure

out what 48 times 5 is and
that'll be over 4, but that'll

get big numbers and it'll be
hard to kind of divide and all

that, but we could divide at
this stage right here.

We could divide the numerator
and the denominator by 4.

Or we could say, look, this is
going to be equal to 48 times

5, whatever that is, over 4.

Now, let's divide the
numerator by 4.

Well, we could divide 48 by 4,
and we will get to 12, and

whatever we did to the
numerator, we have to do to

the denominator, so if we
divide 4 by 4, we get 1.

So then we're left with 12 times
5, which is equal to 60.

12 times 5, which is equal to
60/1, which is the exact same

thing as 60.

So you can actually make 60
children's or babies' T-shirts

from 48 yards if each of
them use 4/5 of a yard.