Jane painted 2 1/3 all with 2/3 cans of paint. How much paint did she use on one wall

Question

Help having trouble figuring out how to solve this

Answer 1

If Jane painted 2 walls with 3 cans of paint, how much paint would she have used on one wall?  The answer would be 3/2, since you just divide the number of cans of paint by the number of walls.  You would solve this problem in the same way, but it gets a little more complicated with fractions.

 

To make it easier, start by turning the number of walls into an improper fraction with no whole number.  2 1/3 can be converted to a fraction by multiplying the denominator (3) by the whole number (2), then adding this to the numerator.  2*3+1 = 7, so the result is 7/3.  That's equivalent to 2 1/3, the number of walls Jane painted.

 

Now you want to divide 2/3 by 7/3, to determine the amount of paint used on each wall.  When you divide by a fraction, that's the same thing as multiplying by its reciprocal.  The reciprocal of 7/3 is 3/7, so you end up with (2/3) * (3/7).  Simplify this, and you will end up with how many cans of paint Jane used for each wall.  (Note: The answer is a fraction!)