Question

Cloth manufacturers use a unit of measurement called a finger. One finger is equal to 4 1/2 inches. if 25 inches were cut off a bolt of cloth how many fingers of cloth were cut

Answer 1

All that has to be done here is to divide the number of inches by the measurement of a finger. So, divide 25 by 4 1/2 and you get approximately 5.55 fingers. The 5 repeats endlessly so bar notation can be used. If the answer is needed as a fraction, change 4 1/2 to an improper fraction to get 9/2. In this case, you're dividing 25 by 9/2, which is the same thing as multiplying 25 by 2/9, the reciprocal of 9/2. This gives you a total of 50/9 fingers, or 5 5/9 fingers as a mixed fraction.