A chef has a large container full of olive oil. In one night, after he used 25 quarts of olive oil, 35.9% of the full container of olive oil remained. To the nearest whole quart, how many quarts of olive oil remained in the container?
Q. A chef has a large container full of olive oil. In one night, after he used 25 quarts of olive oil, 35.9% of the full container of olive oil remained. To the nearest whole quart, how many quarts of olive oil remained in the container?
Problem Understanding: Understand the problem and identify what is given and what needs to be found.We know that after using 25 quarts of olive oil, 35.9% of the oil remains in the container. We need to find out the total amount of olive oil that was in the container before the chef used any, and then calculate how much remains.
Expressing Percentage as Decimal: Express the remaining percentage of olive oil as a decimal.To convert a percentage to a decimal, divide by 100.35.9% as a decimal is 10035.9=0.359.
Total Amount of Olive Oil: Let the total amount of olive oil in the container before the chef used any be x quarts.After using 25 quarts, 35.9% of x is left.So, 0.359×x= amount of olive oil remaining.
Setting up the Equation: Set up the equation to find the total amount of olive oil before any was used.Since 25 quarts were used and 35.9% remains, we can say that 100%−35.9%=64.1% of the oil was used.Therefore, 64.1% of 'x' is equal to the 25 quarts used.Convert 64.1% to a decimal to get 0.641.So, 0.641×x=25.
Solving for x: Solve the equation for x to find the total amount of olive oil in the container before any was used.Divide both sides of the equation by 0.641 to isolate x.x=0.64125Calculate the value of x.x≈39.00156 quarts x≈39 quarts
Calculating Remaining Oil: Calculate the amount of olive oil remaining after the chef used 25 quarts.We already know that 35.9% of x remained, and we have found x to be approximately 39 quarts.So, 0.359×39≈14.001 quarts.
Rounding to Nearest Quart: Round the result to the nearest whole quart as the problem asks for the answer to the nearest whole quart.The amount of olive oil remaining is approximately 14 quarts when rounded to the nearest whole quart.
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