Chris, Ian, and Lovejoy found a collection of 72 golden oldies in a flea market. The price for the whole collection was $9. Chris chipped in $2, Ian $3, and Lovejoy $4 to buy them all. If they decided to split up the collection, how many records should each of them keep?
Solution
Chris contributed 2/9 of the cost, Ian 3/9 of the cost, and Lovejoy 4/9 of the cost.
So Chris should get (2/9) • 72 = 16 of the records.
Ian should get 24 records and Lovejoy should get 32.
Check: 16 + 24 + 32 = 72.
This, of course, only tells us how many records each of them gets. It says nothing about the individual records and who gets what, or even whether they want to break up the collection at all. We will have to leave it up to them to figure this out. It could get complicated.