Question

Tom has 7/8 gallons of paint. He used 1/2 gallon of paint on a project. He uses the steps to show how much paint he had when he was done. But Tom's work is incorrect.

Step 1: 7/8 -1/2

Step 2: 7/8-1/8

Step 3: 8/8

Step 4: 3/4

Explain what Tom did wrong and find out what the answer should be.

Answer 1

Tom has 3/8 of a gallon of paint left over

Answer 2

He made his mistake in Step 2. Tom should have subtracted 4/8 instead of 1/8. The mistake is that he was not consistent when he multiplied Denominators (bottom number) must be the same when handling fractions so Tom must multiply both the numerator and denominator by the SAME number to balance it out. 1/2 x 4/4= 4/8. Subtract. 7/8 - 4/8= 3/8. Tom has 3/8 of a gallon of paint leftover.