Question

Belinda has a box of 24 bananas and 3/8 of them are ripe. How many ripe bananas does she have?

Answer 1

`9` ripe bananas.

Explanation:

For this problem, you are given a ratio of how many are ripe, to how many are not. This is denoted by `3/8`. So, this ratio must be applied to the total amount of bananas.

`24 * (3/8) = 72/8 = "9 bananas"`

Another way to think of this is to divide the total number of bananas by the denominator (the bottom) of the ratio. Then, the number that you get can be multiplied by the numerator to get the final answer.

`"24 bananas"/8 = "3 bananas"`

`"3 bananas" * 3 ("denominator") = "9 bananas"`