Your planning to build a boat. you have a sample board of wood that you want to use. the board has an area of 1/3 ft squared and weighs 1/5 lbs. what is the weight of the wood in pounds per square root?

Given:

Area of sample board: 1/3 square ft.

Weight of sample board: 1/5 lbs

We need to get the weight of the whole square foot.

1/3 square foot is only a part of the whole square foot. Its corresponding weight is 1/5 pounds. We need to divide the area by its corresponding weight to get the total weight per square foot.

1/3 : 1/5

Rules of dividing fractions:

1st fraction: 1/3; 2nd fraction: 1/5

1) Get the reciprocal of the 2nd fraction. 1/5 ⇒ 5/1

2) Multiply 1st fraction to the reciprocal of the 2nd fraction

1/3 * 5/1 = 5/3

3) Simplify fraction.

5/3 is an improper fraction. To simplify it, it needs to become a mixed fraction.

5/3 = 1 2/3 pounds.