M3L8 Application problem

Question

Jane found money in her pocket. She went to a convenience store and spent 2/5 of her money on chocolate milk, ⅓ of her money on a magazine, and the rest of her money on candy. What fraction of her money did she spend on candy?

Answer 1

Hi Sam F

Think of the money as being 1 Whole amount

Using a LCD add the fractions

Subtract that sum from 1 whole based on the LCD

2/5 + 1/3 = 11/15

1 = 15/15

15/15 - 11/15 = 4/15 of the money on candy

Answer 2

Don't you just LOVE fractions!

In this problem, there is an unknown value, the amount of money that Jane found in her pocket. But you don't need to know what that this because the problem is NOT asking you for the amount she spent on the 3rd item. the candy, but rather just the fraction, ok.

Remember that fractions are PARTS of a WHOLE & here they will all be LESS THAN one and ADD up to 1. So...if you put all the fractions together the sum can be assumed to be ONE.

²/₅ + ¹/₃ + ? = 1

OR

? = 1 - ²/₅ - ¹/₃

? is the what you want to solve for.

To add fractions with different denominators, you need the LOWEST COMMON DENOMINATOR, LCD

Here the LCD will be 15.

1 can be seen as ¹⁵/₁₅

Multiply all the other fractions by the factor that will give you 15 in the denominator

? = ¹⁵/₁₅ - ²/₅(³/₃) - ¹/₃(⁵/₅) = ¹⁵/₁₅ - ⁶/₁₅ - ⁵/₁₅ = (15 - 6 - 5)/15 = ⁴/₁₅ Final Answer

Hope that helps...