If the tiger has consumed 18 pounds of food in 3 days that's \( \frac{18}{3} \) = 6 pounds of food per day. The tiger needs to consume 54 - 18 = 36 more pounds of food to reach 54 pounds total. At 6 pounds of food per day that's \( \frac{36}{6} \) = 6 more days.

To find the average of these 4 numbers add them together then divide by 4:

\( \frac{15 + 7 + 14 + 8}{4} \) = \( \frac{44}{4} \) = 11

To simplify this fraction, first find the greatest common factor between them. The factors of 40 are [1, 2, 4, 5, 8, 10, 20, 40] and the factors of 68 are [1, 2, 4, 17, 34, 68]. They share 3 factors [1, 2, 4] making 4 their greatest common factor (GCF).

Next, divide both numerator and denominator by the GCF:

\( \frac{40}{68} \) = \( \frac{\frac{40}{4}}{\frac{68}{4}} \) = \( \frac{10}{17} \)

If 72% of the town's 32,000 voters cast ballots the number of votes cast is:

(\( \frac{72}{100} \)) x 32,000 = \( \frac{2,304,000}{100} \) = 23,040

The mayor got 84% of the votes cast which is:

(\( \frac{84}{100} \)) x 23,040 = \( \frac{1,935,360}{100} \) = 19,354 votes.

A rational number (or fraction) is represented as a ratio between two integers, a and b, and has the form \({a \over b}\) where a is the numerator and b is the denominator. An improper fraction (\({5 \over 3} \)) has a numerator with a greater absolute value than the denominator and can be converted into a mixed number (\(1 {2 \over 3} \)) which has a whole number part and a fractional part.