GCF word problem

[Gab123]

I know this has to do with the GCF, but I don't understand what to do.

A restaurant received a shipment of 42 gal of orange juice and 18 gal of cranberry juice. The juice needs to be equally poured into containers. What is the largest amount of juice that each container can hold of each kind of juice?

42=3x2x7
18=3x3x2

So the GCF is 3.
So is the answer 3? I don't understand what it is asking. Thank you for any help!

 

[Deleted member 4993]

I know this has to do with the GCF, but I don't understand what to do.

A restaurant received a shipment of 42 gal of orange juice and 18 gal of cranberry juice. The juice needs to be equally poured into containers. What is the largest amount of juice that each container can hold of each kind of juice?

42=3x2x7
18=3x3x2

So the GCF is 3. nO.... GCF (Greatest Common Factor) of 42 and 18 is (3 x 2 =) 6.

However I do not know what the problem is asking for either (assuming you have posted it exactly as asked)



So is the answer 3? I don't understand what it is asking. Thank you for any help!

 

[chivox]

One way to get the GCF of two numbers is to write out all the factors of those two numbers (not just the prime factorization). For example, the factors of 18 are (1), 2, 3, 6, 9, and (18). The factors of 42 are (1), 2, 3, 6, 7, 14, 21, and (42). The "greatest" factor common to both numbers would be 6.

This is a badly worded problem. In particular, "equally poured" is a misleading and ambiguous phrase. Let's pretend, since we were told we had to find the GCF to get the answer to this problem, that the question should have been written as follows:

... The juice needs to be poured into equal-sized containers, and it needs to fill all the containers into which it is poured completely. What is the largest container size the restaurant can use?

Of course, we could have achieved the same goal by asking, What is the GCF of 18 and 42?

 

[Gab123]

That was exactly how it is worded. Thank you so much for the help, both of you!