The elephants at the zoo eat 3/4 of a bucket of bananas each day. The zookeeper bought 4 1/2 buckets of bananas. How many days will the bananas last?

Write your answer as a fraction or as a whole or mixed number.

days

1 answer

To find out how many days the bananas will last, we need to divide the total amount of bananas by the amount the elephants eat each day.

  1. Total buckets of bananas: \( 4 \frac{1}{2} = \frac{9}{2} \) buckets
  2. Daily consumption: \( \frac{3}{4} \) of a bucket per day

Now, we will perform the division:

\[ \text{Number of days} = \frac{\text{Total buckets}}{\text{Daily consumption}} = \frac{\frac{9}{2}}{\frac{3}{4}} \]

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

\[ \frac{9}{2} \div \frac{3}{4} = \frac{9}{2} \times \frac{4}{3} \]

Now, we can simplify:

\[ = \frac{9 \times 4}{2 \times 3} = \frac{36}{6} = 6 \]

Thus, the bananas will last for 6 days.