Manual ate 1/3 of crackers on a plate his brother ate 1/4 of the crackers, there were five crackers left on the plate how many crackers are left on the plate to begin with
Let's work backwards to find the initial number of crackers on the plate.
If there were 5 crackers left on the plate, and Manual ate 1/3 of the crackers, then the 5 crackers represent 2/3 of the original amount of crackers.
To find the whole amount, we can set up a proportion: 2/3 = 5/x, where x represents the initial number of crackers.
Cross multiplying, we get 2x = 3 * 5, or 2x = 15.
Dividing both sides by 2, we find x = 15/2 or 7.5.
Since we can't have half a cracker, the initial number of crackers on the plate was 7.