lou cuts 21/3 yards of fabric from a 9-yard roll of fabric. then he cuts 4 more feet of fabric from the roll. how much fabric is left on the roll?

Question

Its a fraction reading problem from 4th grade work book

Answer 1

 

First cut:

         9 yards

        -2 1/3 yards

      ----------------

    The approach is to borrow, so the problem becomes:

         8 3/3 yards

        -2 1/3 yards

       --------------

         6 2/3 yards

 

Second cut:

        6 2/3 yards

       -4      feet

     ----------------

     The units must be the same, so change one.

       For this problem, it is better to change 4 feet = 1 1/3 yards

        6 2/3 yards

       -1 1/3 yards

     ---------------

        5 1/3 yards

 

Of course, this is the same as 5 yards and 1 foot, but when buying fabric at the store, they usually have a price per yard, so 5 1/3 yards makes the most sense.