A garden supply company sells cages for tomatoes. The cages come in either black or silver. To decide how many of each color to stock, the purchaser looks at the sales from last year. He finds that 1/3 of the cages sold were black. Last year the company sold 240 black cages. How many cages were silver?
1/3x = 240
Solve for x, then subtract 240.
To find out how many silver cages were sold, we can use the information given about the proportion of black cages sold.
We know that 1/3 of the cages sold were black, and last year the company sold 240 black cages. To find the total number of cages sold, we can multiply the number of black cages by the reciprocal of the proportion:
Total number of cages sold = Number of black cages / Proportion of black cages
Total number of cages sold = 240 / (1/3)
To divide by 1/3, we can multiply by the reciprocal (3/1) instead:
Total number of cages sold = 240 × (3/1)
Total number of cages sold = 720
Therefore, the company sold a total of 720 cages last year.
Now, to determine how many silver cages were sold, we subtract the number of black cages from the total number of cages sold:
Number of silver cages = Total number of cages sold - Number of black cages
Number of silver cages = 720 - 240
Number of silver cages = 480
So, the company sold 480 silver cages last year.