Question

A bricklayer estimates that he will be able to use 90% of the bricks he receives in ashipment, due to breakage or imperfections. If he needs to have 5000 bricks to use in aproject, how many should he order? Remember that he will need to order a wholenumber

Answer 1

SOLUTION

Given the question, the following are the solution steps to answer the question.

STEP 1: Represent the total number of bricks to be ordered

Let x represent the number of bricks

STEP 2: Interpret the statement

$90\%=\frac{90}{100}=0.9$

He needs to have 5000 bricks from x bricks, this means that:

$\begin{gathered} 0.9\times x=5000 \\ Divide\text{ both sides by 0.9} \\ \frac{0.9}{x}=\frac{5000}{0.9} \\ x=5555.555555556 \\ x\approx5556\text{ bricks} \end{gathered}$

Hence, he should order 5556 bricks