Calculate Unit Price: Finding Cost per Pencil in $2.5 ÷ 5 Problem

Question

Robert bought 5 pencils, paying $2.5 at the checkout.

How much did each pencil cost?

Video Solution

Solution Steps

00:00 Find the price of each pencil
00:03 Number of pencils according to the data
00:06 The total price paid
00:09 Let's mark the price of one pencil with unknown X
00:12 Multiply the number of pencils by their price and equate to total price
00:15 Isolate the unknown X
00:19 And this is the solution to the question

Step-by-Step Solution

To solve this problem, we'll calculate the cost per pencil as follows:

Robert bought 5 pencils for a total of \2.5 \). We need to find the cost of each pencil by dividing the total cost by the number of pencils:

  • Total cost = \2.5 \)
  • Number of pencils = 5
  • Cost per pencil = Total cost / Number of pencils

Perform the calculation:

Cost per pencil=2.55 \text{Cost per pencil} = \frac{2.5}{5}

Calculating 2.55\frac{2.5}{5}, we convert 2.5 to a fraction: 52\frac{5}{2}. So, the division becomes:

52÷5=52×15=510=12 \frac{5}{2} \div 5 = \frac{5}{2} \times \frac{1}{5} = \frac{5}{10} = \frac{1}{2}

Therefore, each pencil cost \0.5\) or 12 \frac{1}{2} dollar.

The correct choice reflecting this calculation is: 12 \frac{1}{2} .

This confirms with the provided correct answer.

The solution to the problem is that each pencil cost 12\frac{1}{2} dollar.

Answer

12 \frac{1}{2}