Maylin and Nina are making fruit baskets. They have 36 apples, 27 bananas, and 18 oranges. They want each basket to contain the same amount of each fruit. Maylin believes the greatest number of baskets they can make is 6, and Nina believes the greatest number of baskets they can make is 9.

Question

Determine who is correct. Explain how you know.

Answer 1

The GCF of 36, 27, and 18 is 9

so she can make 9 baskets, each containing
4 apples, 3 bananas, and 2 oranges

6 baskets would not work, since the 27 bananas can not
be evenly placed in the 6 baskets.
3 baskets would also work, but it wouldn't be the largest number
of baskets, as required.