Kevin bought 3 pizzas to share with his family. Together they ate 1 5/12 pizzas on Monday and another 3/4 of pizza on Tuesday. How much pizza is left after Tuesday?

Answer 1

Hello!

This may seem overwhelming at first but lets break down what we DO know:

Amount Bought: 3 Pizzas (or also 3/1 Pizzas <- This form will be useful!)

Eaten on Monday: -1 5/12 Pizzas

Eaten on Tuesday: -3/4 Pizzas

Step 1: Find the factors for reference

First. Lets see the factors of the largest denominator, which is 12 ( I got 12 from -1 5/12)

Factors include:

1*12 = 12 ( Factor pairs 1,12)

2*6 = 12 ( Factor pairs 2,6)

4*3 = 12 ( Factor pairs 3,4)

2) Lets get all the numbers into fraction..

Good news! Most of the numbers are already fractions... except the Pizza eaten on Monday: 1 5/12.

We can convert the 1 into 12/12. So 12/12 + 5/12 = 17/12.

Pizza Eaten on Monday: -17/12 (Negative because it is what has been eaten)

3) Get the least common denominator for all fractions

Since we know our least common denominator is 12. We need to multiply each number by 1 so that the resulting fraction has a denominator of 12. This looks like the following.

Amount Bought: 3/1 *12/12 = 36/12

Eaten on Monday: -17/12 (You don't need to do anything here since the denominator is already 12)

Eaten on Tuesday: -3/4 * 3/3 = 9/12

4) Subtraction

Amount Bought - Pizza Eaten on Monday - Pizza Eaten on Tuesday = ANSWER

36/12 -17/12 - 9/12 = 10/12 Pizzas remain (5/6 most simplified form)