Question

On Dan's eReader, 2/3 of the books are fiction. Of the fiction books,4/5 are mysteries. What fraction of the books on Dan's eReader are mysteries? What fraction the books are not mysteries? Explain

Answer 1

Explanation:

Let's take a real situation. Suppose he has 1500 books in total

2/3 of them are fiction. Of means multiply.

them = 1500

2/3 * 1500 = 3000/3 = 1000

Now of the one thousand fiction books 4/5 of them are mysteries.

4/5 * 1000 = 4000/5 = 800.

Now let's see what happens when we just do this by answering the question directly.

2/3 * 4/5 = 8/15 This has the meaning that 8 out of every 15 books = mysteries.

Try this on the 1500 books.

8/15 * 1500 = 9000/15 = 800. So the answers are the same and the answer the computer expects should be 8/15 or 0.533333333

Just to check, does 0.5333333 * 1500 = 800? Try it.