Victoria plans to repaint some classroom bookcases. She has 2 gallons of paint. All of the bookcases are the same size and each requires one eigth

Question

8
1
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gallon of paint. How many bookcases will she be able to paint?
Answer
Attempt 1 out of 2
To solve, we'll need to
, because we know the SIZE of the groups and the
, but we don't know the
.

Answer 1

To determine how many bookcases Victoria can paint, we need to use the amount of paint she has and the amount of paint required for each bookcase.

1. Total paint available: 2 gallons
2. Paint required per bookcase: $\frac{1}{8}$ gallon

Next, we can calculate the total number of bookcases that can be painted by dividing the total amount of paint by the amount of paint needed for one bookcase.

$$\text{Number of bookcases}=\frac{\text{Total paint}}{\text{Paint per bookcase}}=\frac{2\text{ gallons}}{\frac{1}{8}\text{ gallon per bookcase}}$$

To divide by a fraction, we multiply by its reciprocal:

$$\text{Number of bookcases}=2\times 8=16$$

So, Victoria will be able to paint 16 bookcases.

To summarize:

• We approached the problem using division, knowing the total paint and the size of the groups (each bookcase).
• The unknown we solved for was the number of bookcases she can paint.