My name is Jack. I'm a uncle. Student is in the 5th grade email is above.

If a baseball player at sping training had a good season with the following:

one seventh of his hits were doubles.
12.5% of his hits were home runs.
But didn't have any triples.
How many hits did he have?

Can you give me an explanation of you solved the problem.

Hi Jack,

You know the fraction of doubles, triples and home runs he hit, so all you are missing is the singles. Since 12.5% is 1/8, the fraction of his hits that were doubles, triples or home runs is

1/7 + 0 + 1/8 = 8/56 + 0 + 7/56 = 15/56

Thus the fraction of his hits that were singles is

1 - 15/56 = 41/56

If this arithmetic is exact then you know that the number of hits he had is a multiple of 56. He might have had 56 hits,

41 singles, 8 doubles, no triples and 7 home runs

or he might have had 256 = 112 hits,

82 singles, 16 doubles, no triples and 14 home runs

or he might have had 356 = 168 hits,

...

Cheers,
Penny

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