Dennis is packing 108 pens ,80 books and96 note pads into boxes. He wants to pack an equal number of pens books and note pads in each box . Find the greatest number of boxes that Dennis can pack the items into
The first thing we need to do is work out the highest common factor of 108, 80, and 96.
108 80 96 1 x 108 1 x 80 1 x 96 2 x 54 2 x 40 2 x 48 3 x 36 4 x 20 3 x 32 4 x 27 8 x 10 4 x 24 6 x 18 6 x 16 9 x 12 8 x 12
So, the common factors are 1, 2 and 4 The highest common factor (HCF) is 4.
The greatest number of box used is 4 boxes and the number of each item in each box is... Pens - 108/4 = 27 pens Books - 80/4 = 20 books Notepads - 96/4 = 24 notepads.