Question

Some friends of yours collected books for a book drive. They collected 64 Fiction, and 48 Non-Fiction books. They asked you to make bundles of books so that all the books get sent to families who want them and all of the bundles have the same content inside. How many bundles of books can your team send? How many fiction books will you need to put in each bundle? How many non-fiction books will you need to put in each bundle?

Answer 1

As all of the bundles have the same content inside, so assuming that there is x number of Fiction books and y number of Non-fiction books in each bundle.

Let n be the total number of bundles that my team can send.

There are 64 Fiction books, so

nx=64 ...(i)

Or x=64/n ...(ii)

also, there are 48 Non-Fiction books, so

ny=48 ...(iii)

Or y=48/n ...(iv)

Observing that the numbers x, y, and n are counting numbers and from equations (i) and (iii), n is the common factor of 64 and 48.

The possible common factors of 64 and 48 are,

n=1,2,4,8, and 16.

So, my team can send 1,2,3,4,8 or 16 bundles of books.

Now, from equations (ii) and (iv),

For n=1:

x=64/1=64

y=48/1=48

So, for 1 bundle the number of Fiction and Non-fictions books are 64 and 48 respectively.

For n=2:

x=64/2=32

y=48/2=48

So, for 2 bundles, the number of Fiction and Non-fictions books are 32 and 24 respectively.

For n=4:

x=64/4=16

y=48/4=12

So, for 4 bundles, the number of Fiction and Non-fictions books are 16 and 12 respectively.

For n=8:

x=64/8=8

y=48/8=6

So, for 8 bundles, the number of Fiction and Non-fictions books are 8 and 6 respectively.

For n=16:

x=64/16=4

y=48/16=3

So, for 16 bundles, the number of Fiction and Non-fictions books are 4 and 3 respectively.