James had enough money to buy either 48 pens or 60 pencils. If he had already bought 8 pens and 16 pencils, how many more pencils can James buy?

Answer 1

James originally had enough money to buy either 48 pens or 60 pencils, so he must have had enough money to buy 1 pen for the same price as 5/6 of a pencil (since 60 ÷ 48 = 5/4).

If James already bought 8 pens and 16 pencils, that's equivalent to buying the cost of 8 pens + 16 pencils = 8*(5/6) pencils + 16 pencils = 40/6 pencils + 96/6 pencils = 136/6 pencils.

Therefore, James has 136/6 pencils worth of money left. To find out how many more pencils he can buy, we divide this amount by the price of 1 pencil:

(136/6) ÷ (5/6) = (136/6) x (6/5) = 136/5

So James can buy another 136/5 pencils, which is equivalent to 27 and 1/5 pencils.