The students in the cooking club brought sugar to class. They each brought 3, 4, 5, 3, and 5 cups of sugar, respectively. They d
ivided the sugar evenly so that each student received the same number of cups of sugar. How many cups of sugar did each student get? A. 2
B. 3
C. 4
D. 5
The students bought 3 + 4 + 5 + 3 + 5 cups altogether, and we want to distribute those evenly. We <em>could</em> add them up and do division, <em>or </em>we could just shift some cups around. If we take a cup away from each of the 5-cup portions and add it to each of the 3-cup portions, the sum now looks like
(3 + 1) + 4 + (5 - 1) + (3 + 1) + (5 - 1)
or, simplifying:
4 + 4 + 4 + 4 + 4
Everyone's got the same amount of sugar now, and that amount is 4 cups.
