A rental store requires customers to pay 3/8 of the value of the item as a deposit. What is this value as a decimal and a percent?

question: how many people can she serve?

answer: she can serve 16.66666667 people. so she can only give 16 people a complete serving.

question: does she have enough ice cream for her guests?

answer: no. explanation: she only has enough for 16 people to have a full serving. however, she can give a 17th person a partial serving.

we have three similar triangles, because each has a right angle and shares an angle.   let's write the angles in order: opposite to short leg, long leg, hypotenuse.

cab similar to bad similar to cbd

or as ratios,

ca: ab: cb = ba: ad: bd = cb: bd: cd

we also know

ac = ad + cd

(ad+cd): ab: cb = ba: ad: bd = cb: bd: cd

(ad+cd)/cb=cb/cd

we have cb=6, ad=5 and seek x=cd.

we reject the negative root and conclude x=4

answer: 4