Question 1166153: Maria is planting a row of flowers in a bed 27 feet long. The instructions say to space the plants 1 foot apart. The flowers come in flats containing 6 plants per flat.
How many flats will she need?
________________flats
How many plants will she have left over?
_______________plants
Found 2 solutions by ikleyn, greenestamps:
Answer by ikleyn(52781)   (Show Source):
You can put this solution on YOUR website! .
I interpret the problem this way.
The bed is 27 ft long.
Maria will plant flowers in the center of each of 27 one-foot interval.
So, she will plant 27 flowers.
Starting from this point, everybody can continue and complete the solution to the end.
Solved.
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After the post from @greenestamps, I see the necessity to explain in more details,
why I chose that interpretation, which I used in my solution above.
The instruction " to space the plants 1 foot apart " translated to terms of biology of the plants
and to common sense, means that every plant requires the space of 1/2 ft from each side for normal growth.
It leads directly to that interpretation, which I used in my solution.
So, my interpretation is consistent with the instruction and with the common sense.
Answer by greenestamps(13200)  (Show Source):
You can put this solution on YOUR website!
Supposedly this is supposed to be viewed as a purely mathematical exercise, without any consideration of the actual real situation.
So one tutor interprets the problem in one logical way, placing one plant in each of the 27 1-foot intervals.
In reality, it is possible that plants can be at each end of the 27-foot garden, which means Maria could plant 28 plants in the garden.
It is also possible that physical constraints require a 1-foot clearance from each end of the garden, which means there would only be enough room for 26 plants.
So in the real situation the problem is not defined well enough.
And given that, it is probably best to go with the elementary interpretation which allows room for 27 plants.
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