alex and 3 other friends each ate 3/8 of a pizza. how much did alex and his friends eat in all?

Answer 1

Hi Tavius,

This is an interesting question with fractions. I'd like to help solve a similar question that will help you think through this one without giving away the final answer.

What if we said Alex and 4 other friends each ate 5/8 of a pizza. How much did Alex and his friends eat in all?

Let's start by figuring out how many people are eating pizza.

We have Alex + 4 friends, so that's 5 people.

So five people each had an equal amount, which was 5/8 pizza. Since it was an equal amount, we can solve this problem in two different ways.

One is addition:

5/8+5/8+5/8+5/8+5/8

The other is multiplication

5 x 5/8

Either method will give you a sum or product of 25/8. You then need to simplify this answer. Divide the numerator by the denominator. Eight goes into 25 3 times with a remainder of 1. So my whole number will be 3 and the fraction will be 1/8.

Alex and his friends ate 3-1/8 pizzas.

A quick summary of the steps:

1) Find out how many people are eating pizza.

2) Add or multiply the amount of pizza that each person ate.

3) Simplify your answer by dividing the numerator by the denominator.