A family-sized box of laundry detergent contains 45 cups of detergent. Each load of laundry uses 0.25 cups. The family-sized box advertises that it can wash 20% more loads than the regular-sized box.



How many loads of laundry can be washed with the regular-sized box? Enter the answer in the box.

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The regular-sized box of detergent can wash
loads of laundry.

1 answer

To find out how many loads a regular-sized box of laundry detergent can wash, we first need to determine how many loads the family-sized box can wash.

We know:

  • The family-sized box contains 45 cups of detergent.
  • Each load uses 0.25 cups.

To calculate the number of loads that can be washed with the family-sized box, we divide the total cups of detergent by the amount used per load:

\[ \text{Loads with family-sized box} = \frac{45 \text{ cups}}{0.25 \text{ cups/load}} = 180 \text{ loads} \]

The family-sized box advertises that it can wash 20% more loads than the regular-sized box. Let \( x \) be the number of loads that the regular-sized box can wash. Therefore, we have:

\[ 180 = x + 0.20x \]

This simplifies to:

\[ 180 = 1.20x \]

Now, we solve for \( x \):

\[ x = \frac{180}{1.20} = 150 \]

Thus, the regular-sized box of detergent can wash 150 loads of laundry.

The answer is:

The regular-sized box of detergent can wash 150 loads of laundry.