Sue's Responses in WyzAnt Answers

Hi Riley,

If you put money in the cash box to start in order to make change, then that money was not part of the profits and must be subtracted out at the end of the day. In this problem The $453.50 is made up of the $25 starter money AND the amount that was taken in. To solve, subtract $25 from the $453.50.

453.50 - 25 =428.50

Here's a handy process you can use to be sure you are rounding correctly.

Whatever number you have, underline the place value that you need to round to:

1,354,029

Everything to the right of that number will turn into 0's. The trick is:

Will you bump up the 4 or just dump the rest of the numbers and leave the 4?

You check it by what is immediately to the right, which in this case is 0. IF the number to the right is 5 or higher, bump up the underlined 4 and change the places to the right to 0's. IF the number to the right is less than 5, leave the 4 as it is and "dump" the other numbers, changing them to 0's.

I like to play "Bump or Dump," but actually you are determining if the number is closer to 1,354,000 ir 1,355,000 for estimating purposes. In some cases there would be no need to worry about 29 things when you are only concerned with thousands.

The order of operations always applies in equations. I like to remember the order of operations as:

Please Excuse MyDear AuntSally or Parentheses (Grouping Symbols), Exponents, Multiply/Divide left to right, and finally Add/Subtract left to right.

It appears in your problem that there are no exponents, which are little raised numbers to the right of a regular number. In computer, we usually write it as: 4^2, which would mean 4 times 4 which is 16.

In your equation, it looks like you are supposed to put in grouping symbols or parentheses. In order to get 192 as the answer, you would place the parentheses like this:

(36-4) x 6

32 x 6

192

Without any grouping symbols, you must follow the order of operations, which would mean that you would multiply first, then subtract:

32 - (4 x 6)

32 - 24

8

But that doesn't yield your required answer of 192.

I hope that clarifies what you need to do first.

Hi Alaina,

In elementary school, we learn various ways to solve problems, but mostly we are learning the basics of computation or arithmetic. I like to think of algebra as being a detective to find a mystery number, which instead of having a box or shaded area, now uses a letter.

So, what you used to see as 13 + ___  = 18, you may now see written as: 13 + n = 18.

Because we are "pretending" to be detectives, we have to take notes on our logic of finding "clues."

So instead of saying, "Oh, that's easy. I know it is 5!" I must now show the logic by "isolating" the variable. Think about it as getting the variable alone so you can make an accusation like in the game Clue.

Here's how this problem would work:

The = is the balance of the equation and everything needs to stay balanced, so what I do to one side, I MUST do to the other side.

13 + n = 18   I will get n all by itself by taking the 13 off the left side of the balance.

-13      = -13  I always do the opposite operation, so if 13 is positive, I will subtract. If the                           

                     number is negative, I will add. If it is written like 4n, it means 4 times n and I will

                     divide to get rid of the number. If it is written like a fraction ( n/3), it means divide,

                     so I will multiply the number on the bottom to cancel it out.

 n   = 5          13 - 13 is 0, so it is gone and leaves me with my "mystery number" which is 5!!

Yes, I know that is simple, but the problems get gradually more and more complex, so if you understand this basic idea that we are being logical detectives and not just "knowing" the answer, we can solve MANY very difficult problems step-by-step with ease and not guess.

I hope that helps explain the difference between how to do "math" and how to do algebra.

Hi Jesse,

If you follow a couple of simple rules of algebra, you won't have to worry about the denominators.

First, what you do to one side of the equation, you MUST do to the other side in order to keep it balanced.

Second, you need to get all of the terms that go together on one side in order to work with them.

So, in this problem, you want all of the n terms on one side and the number on the other.

2/3n = 4n -10/3n -1/2     Let's move the -1/2 first:

 +1/2 =              +1/2

2/3n +1/2 = 4n -10/3n   Now let's move the 2/3n:

-2/3n       =       -2/3n

1/2         = 4n   -12/3n    Now turn the whole number 4 into an improper fraction.

                                    If we are making 3rds, then 3/3 = 1 and 12/3 = 4

1/2         = 12/3n  - 12/3n

1/2        =  0n

1/2        =  0

This is impossible, so there is no solution.

It is OK to have different teachers show different ways to get to the answer -- as long as the rules of algebra are followed.