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Ice Cream Party — Fraction Story Problem
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Solving a Fraction Story Problem with Excel
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A school has 750 students, and you need to know how many cups of each flavor of ice cream to buy so each student can have one cup of their favorite flavor. A survey found that 1/2 of students want vanilla, 1/3 want chocolate, and 1/6 want strawberry. The ice cream comes in packs of 50 cups.

Part 1: How many full packs of each flavor need to be ordered so each student gets one cup of their favorite flavor?
Part 2: How many cups of each flavor will be remaining?
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Total number of students:750
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Cups per pack:50
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Yellow cells are inputs — change these to try different student counts, flavor fractions, or pack sizes.
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FlavorFractionNumber of CupsNumber of PacksFull Packs (rounded up)Packs RemainingCups Remaining
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Vanilla1/23757 1/281/225
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Chocolate1/32505500
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Strawberry1/61252 1/231/225
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Total (check)2750151650
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Answers
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Part 1 — Full packs to order (Vanilla / Chocolate / Strawberry):8 / 5 / 3
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Part 2 — Cups remaining (Vanilla / Chocolate / Strawberry):25 / 0 / 25
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Notes
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• Column B holds cells formatted as Fraction (up to 3 digits) via Format Cells > Number > Fraction, so results display as fractions instead of decimals.
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• "Number of Cups" = fraction × total students. "Number of Packs" = cups ÷ cups per pack.
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• "Full Packs" rounds the exact pack count up (ROUNDUP), since you can't buy a partial pack.
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• "Packs Remaining" = full packs ordered − packs actually needed (the leftover fraction of a pack).
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• "Cups Remaining" = cups per pack × packs remaining — this answers Part 2 of the problem.
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• The Total (check) row confirms the fractions and cup counts sum correctly across all three flavors.
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