A customer needs 60 pencils if he buys them on sale how many of the 60 pencils can he get for free?

sale

buy 4 pencils get the 5th pencil free

If the customer buys 4 pencils he will get the 5th one free.

This means, in every 5 pencils, he is getting one free pencil. 60 pencils can be seen as 12 groups of 5 pencils each. In each group he is getting 1 free pencil, so in 12 groups, the customer will get 12 free pencils.

So, we can conclude that, if the customer buys 60 pencils on sale, he will get 12 of them as free.