what is the area of a rectangle whose length is 3 3/4 and whose width is 8 7/8?

Answer 1

To find the area of a rectangle, you want to multiply the length by the width. For this problem, one way to do that is to convert each mixed number into a fraction greater than one. 3 3/4 would become 15/4 as 3 wholes is 12/4 plus the additional 3/4. 8 7/8 would become 71/8 as 8 wholes would be 64/8 plus the additional 7/8. Our new fractions are 15/4 and 71/8

Then you would multiply the numerators and then the denominators. 15 X 71= 1065 and 4 X 8= 32. So the answer would be 1065/32. Using division this would simplify to 33 9/32.

You could also use the area model completing more equations, and adding together the answers. We would want to split 3 3/4 into the two parts as well as 8 7/8. The four equations would be 3X8, 3/4 X 7/8, 3 X 7/8, and 3/4 X 8. 3X8=24, 3/4 X 7/8= 21/32, 3 X 7/8= 21/8=2 5/8, and 3/4X8=24/4=6. Then we add the parts together. 24+6=30 and to add the fractions we need a common denominator of 32. 2 5/8=2 20/32, which we can now add to 21/32 and get 2 41/32, which simplifies to 3 9/32, adding that back to our whole number of 30, we get 33 9/32.