Question

Writing and evaluating expressions

5a. In may, zookeepers added grain to Fiona's diet. She was eating c cups of grain per day. Write an expression for how many days a supply of 120 cups of grain would last.


B. Evaluate the expression she ate 1.5 cups of grain per day in May

Answer 1

An expression is basically an equation without the equal sign. An expression for your problem (part A) would be 120/c. For example, with the expression, we can see that if Fiona ate 40 cups of grain per day (120/3), then her grain would last her 3 days.

The way B is worded is a bit weird to me, but if I understand it correctly, Part B is simple now that we have the expression because we can plug in the value for the variable c. 120/1.5 is 80. If Fiona eats 1.5 cups of grain per day (much more reasonable than my exanple of 40 above, lol), then she would have grain for 80 days.