PSLE
Zara had two ribbons of the same length. She cut the first ribbon into equal parts of length 40 cm and to each part she tied 3 black cartoon cutouts. After that, she cut the second ribbon into equal parts of length 45 cm and to each part she tied 5 gold cartoon cutouts. When she finished tying, she counted that there were 39 more gold cartoon cutouts than black cartoon cutouts. How many cartoon cutouts were there altogether?

	First ribbon	Second ribbon	Difference	Total
Length of each part	40 cm	45 cm
Number of balloons tied to each part	3 black balloons	5 gold balloons
LCM	360 cm	360 cm
Number of equal parts	360 ÷ 40 = 9	360 ÷ 45 = 8
Number of balloons for each ribbon per set	9 x 3 = 27	5 x 8 = 40	40 - 27 = 13	27 + 40 = 67

LCM of 40 and 45 = 360

Number of sets of 3 black cartoon cutouts in a length of 360 cm
= 360 ÷ 40
= 9

Number of black cartoon cutouts in a length of 360 cm
= 9 x 3
= 27

Number of sets of 5 gold cartoon cutouts in a length of 360 cm
= 360 ÷ 45
= 8

Number of gold cartoon cutouts in a length of 360 cm
= 8 x 5
= 40

Extra number of gold cartoon cutouts in a length of 360 cm
= 40 - 27
= 13

Number of sets of cartoon cutouts
= 39 ÷ 13
= 3

Total number of cartoon cutouts in one set of 360 cm of black balloons and one set of 360 cm of gold balloons
= 27 + 40
= 67

Total number of cartoon cutouts of the two ribbons
= 3 x 67
= 201

Answer(s): 201