A caterer distributes 8 plates in 5 minutes. If she needs to distribute 144 plates, what fraction of the plates can she distribute in 1 hour?

To determine the fraction of plates the caterer can distribute in one hour, we first need to calculate her distribution rate. The caterer distributes 8 plates in 5 minutes. In one hour, which is 60 minutes, we can find out how many plates she can distribute by first calculating how many 5-minute intervals fit into 60 minutes.

There are 60 minutes divided by 5 minutes per interval, resulting in 12 intervals of 5 minutes in an hour. Since she distributes 8 plates in each 5-minute interval, we multiply the number of intervals (12) by the number of plates distributed in each interval (8):

12 intervals × 8 plates/interval = 96 plates distributed in 1 hour.

Next, to find the fraction of the total 144 plates that she can distribute in one hour, we express her distribution in terms of the total number of plates:

96 plates distributed out of 144 total plates can be represented as a fraction:

96/144.

To simplify this fraction, we divide both the numerator and the denominator by their greatest common divisor, which is 48:

96 ÷ 48 = 2 and 144 ÷ 48 = 3.

Thus, the simplified fraction