Question

You cut off half of a strip of paper. Then you cut off half of the piece that is left. Then you cut off half of the remaining piece.

What fraction of the original strip is left?

Answer 1

To determine the answer, we can dissect each sentence in the problem. We proceed as follows:

You cut off half of a strip of paper.
1(.5) = .5

Then you cut off half of the piece that is left.
.5(.5) = .25

Then you cut off half of the remaining piece.
.25(.5) = 0.125

Therefore, the fraction that is left from the original strip would be 0.125.