Question

Latrell bought 4 bags of powdered sugar. He got a total of 5 1/2 cups of sugar. How many cups of sugar were in each bag?

Answer 1

So all 4 bags of sugar yielded 5 and 1/2 cups..... well.. how many in each one?  well, let's split the 5 and 1/2 evenly in 4 pieces.

$\bf \stackrel{mixed}{5}\frac{1}{2}\implies \cfrac{5\cdot 2+1}{2}\implies \stackrel{improper}{\cfrac{11}{2}}\\\\ -------------------------------\\\\ \cfrac{\quad\frac{11}{2} \quad }{4}\implies \cfrac{\quad\frac{11}{2} \quad }{\frac{4}{1}}\implies \cfrac{11}{2}\cdot \cfrac{1}{4}\implies \cfrac{11}{8}\implies \stackrel{cups}{1\frac{3}{8} }$