Question

A blueberry shortcake 49 feet, 4 inches long and 9 feet wide was made in Canada on September 19, 1995. The height of the shortcake was 8 inches. What was the number of cubic feet in the volume of the shortcake?

Please help me solve this problem!

Answer 1

296 cubic feet

Explanation:

First and foremost, you have to have everything in either feet or inches. Right now they are in both. Since the answer is asked for in feet, let's convert everything to feet. The width is already in feet, so that's good.

However, even though the length is 49 feet, we still have to convert the 4 inches part of that to feet. Using the fact that there are 12 inches in a foot:

`4in.*(1ft)/(12in.)=(1)/(3)ft` so we have

`49(1)/(3)ft`

Convert that to improper to make the multiplication easier in the end:

`49(1)/(3)=(148)/(3)ft`

Now we have to convert the 8 inches to feet using the same reasoning:

`8in.*(1ft)/(12in.)=(2)/(3)ft`

Now everything is in terms of feet. The volume is found by multiplying length times width times height:

`((148)/(3) )((9)/(1))((2)/(3))=  (2664)/(9)ft`

Divide that and it comes out to an even 296 cubic feet