Question

Benjamin made a fruit salad with strawberries, blueberries, and kiwi. Use the clues to find the amounts of each ingredient. 1.) The amounts were 3/4 cup, 2/8 cup, and 1/2 cup. 2.)Benjamin used more blueberries than strawberries. 3.)Benjamin used more strawberries than kiwi.

Answer 1

To find out how many of each fruit Benjamin used in his fruit salad, all we have to do is line up the measures of the amount of unknown fruits he put in by smallest to largest. A simple way to find out which fractions in a set are bigger than others is just to complete the fractions by dividing the numerator by the denominator, and then comparing the resulting decimals.

3/4 = 3 / 4 = 0.75

2/8 = 1/4 = 1 / 4 = 0.25

1/2 = 1 / 2 = 0.50

Now, we can organize them by smallest to largest. Organizing decimals is very similar to organizing whole numbers, only the decimal point is in a different spot. Just make sure you keep the decimal lined up with the comparisons, and you'll be fine.
So, we can act like these are whole numbers when organizing them (as in, 0.75 could be treated as 75, 0.25 could be treated as 25, and 0.5 could be treated as 50).
25 is the smallest of those three numbers, so 0.25 (1/4) is the smallest amount. 50 comes next, so 0.5 (1/2) is the middle number, and 75 is the biggest, so 0.75 (3/4) is the biggest amount.

Now, we can work on the problem.

We know that Benjamin used more blueberries than strawberries, and that he used more strawberries than kiwi. Therefore, Benjamin used the most of blueberries, then strawberries, then kiwi. So, we can match up blueberries to the biggest number, then strawberries to the next biggest, and kiwi to the smallest.

Blueberries = 3/4
Strawberries = 1/2
Kiwi = 1/4

Benjamin used 3/4 of a cup of blueberries, 1/2 a cup of strawberries, and 1/4 (2/8) of a cup of kiwi for his fruit salad.
Hope that helped! =)