Sara discarded 110 of the apples she picked as defective. Of the apples remaining 300 were made into cider. The rest were sold as fresh fruit. What fraction of the total apples picked were sold as fresh fruit.

1 answer

Let's denote the total number of apples Sara picked as \( x \).

From the problem, we know she discarded 110 apples, so the number of apples remaining after discarding is:

\[ x - 110 \]

Out of the remaining apples, 300 were made into cider. Therefore, the number of apples sold as fresh fruit is:

\[ (x - 110) - 300 = x - 410 \]

Now, to find the fraction of the total apples picked that were sold as fresh fruit, we need to express this quantity as a fraction of \( x \):

\[ \text{Fraction of apples sold as fresh fruit} = \frac{x - 410}{x} \]

To simplify this fraction, we can rewrite it as:

\[ 1 - \frac{410}{x} \]

Now, we need to determine \( x \). We know that \( x - 110 \) (remaining apples) had 300 apples made into cider, which means:

\[ x - 110 \geq 300 \]

This implies:

\[ x \geq 410 \]

If \( x = 410 \), then all apples except the ones discarded would be made into cider, leaving no apples to be sold as fresh fruit.

Assuming \( x > 410 \), \( x - 410 \) will be positive and hence we can conclude there are fresh apples sold.

Now substituting values greater than \( 410 \) for \( x \):

If we take \( x = 500 \) as an example, then:

\[ x - 410 = 500 - 410 = 90 \]

So the fraction of total apples sold as fresh fruit becomes:

\[ \frac{90}{500} = \frac{9}{50} \]

Thus, the fraction of the total apples picked that were sold as fresh fruit is:

\[ \frac{x - 410}{x} \]

If we express this in terms of fractions, we find that the result will always depend on the specific total picked greater than 410. For any specific value of \( x > 410 \), you can determine the fraction.

However, to find a precise numerical answer, we need more information about the total picked. Assuming an arbitrary value, we find the fraction, otherwise, we can summarize that the fraction of fresh sold is:

\[ \frac{x - 410}{x} \]

This is the required answer for any value of \( x \) greater than 410.