Question

A pitcher of lemonade holds 64.8 ounces. If each serving is 7.2 ounces, how many servings are there in a pitcher?

Answer 1

Hint: To solve the given problem, we first have to assume a variable for the number of servings that a pitcher has. Then, using the other given information we will find the value of the variables. We should also know how to do division of decimal numbers.

Complete step-by-step solution:
First, we assume the number of servings that a pitcher holds is \[x\].
We are given that a pitcher of lemonade holds 64.8 ounces. This means that the pitcher can hold lemonade of a weight of 64.8 ounces. A pitcher is a large jug, that can hold a large amount of any liquid. We are assuming that the person who is using this pitcher is filling each serving of lemonade equally. Thus, if each serving is of 7.2 ounces, and we assumed that the pitcher can fill x number of servings. The total amount of lemonade the pitcher holds equals \[7.2x\].
This amount must be equal to the given weight of lemonade that the pitcher holds. Hence, we get \[7.2x=64.8\]. Dividing both sides of this equation by 7.2, we get \[\dfrac{7.2x}{7.2}=\dfrac{64.8}{7.2}\]. We can factorize the number 64.8 as \[7.2\times 9\]. Using this factorization, we can write the equation as \[\dfrac{7.2x}{7.2}=\dfrac{7.2\times 9}{7.2}\].
cancelling out the common factors from the numerator and the denominator of both sides of the equation, we get \[x=9\].
Thus, the number of servings that a pitcher holds equals 9.

Note: Here, we made an assumption that each serving that the pitcher fills has weight equals to 7.2 ounces. We did this to directly find the number of servings that the pitcher holds. We factorized the number 64.8 because dividing a decimal by another decimal can be difficult in some cases.