A shelf can support 3 3/4 pounds.
Part A
If a book weighs 3/8 of a pound, how many books can the shelf hold?
Part B
If you add more support so the shelf can now hold 5 1/4 pounds, how many books can the shelf hold now?
Part A:
To find out how many books the shelf can hold, we need to divide the weight the shelf can support (3 3/4 pounds) by the weight of a single book (3/8 pounds).
3 3/4 ÷ 3/8 can be simplified by multiplying the numerator and denominator by 8:
(15/4) ÷ (3/8) = (15/4) × (8/3)
Multiplying the numerators and the denominators gives us:
(15 × 8) ÷ (4 × 3) = 120/12
Simplifying the fraction, we get:
120/12 = 10
Therefore, the shelf can hold 10 books.
Part B:
If the shelf can now support 5 1/4 pounds, we need to divide this weight by the weight of a single book (3/8 pounds) to find out how many books it can hold.
5 1/4 ÷ 3/8 can be simplified by multiplying the numerator and denominator by 8:
(21/4) ÷ (3/8) = (21/4) × (8/3)
Multiplying the numerators and the denominators gives us:
(21 × 8) ÷ (4 × 3) = 168/12
Simplifying the fraction, we get:
168/12 = 14
Therefore, with the additional support, the shelf can now hold 14 books.