Alex opens a 1-pint container of orange butter. He spreads 1/16 of the butter on his bread. Then he divides the rest of the butter into 3/4 pint containers. How many 3/4 containers is he able to fill.

The first thing to do is to make the denominators of the fractions the same:

16 / 4 = 4.  4 X 3 = 12.

12/16.

16 / 1 = 16.  16 X 1 = 16

16/16

Now you write this out as a fraction equation:

(16/16 - 1/16) / 12/16

15/16 / 12/16

Since all you need to know is the whole number, you can easily tell that 15 / 12 is less than 2.  

Therefore, Alex is able to fill one 3/4-point containers with orange butter.

Step-by-step explanation: