Question

Polly has 3(1/3) ft of ribbon to wrap her mom's birthday present. If she ends up using 3/4 of that, then how much of the ribbon did she use?

Answer 1

Polly uses 2 1/2 feet of her 3(1/3) feet of ribbon, as she uses 3/4 of the total ribbon she has. The calculation is done by multiplying 3/4 by 10/3 feet to get the final answer.

Step-by-step explanation:

Polly has 3(1/3) feet of ribbon, which equates to 10/3 feet when converted to an improper fraction. If she uses 3/4 of the ribbon, we need to calculate 3/4 of 10/3 feet. In mathematical terms, this involves multiplying the two fractions (3/4) × (10/3).

To calculate this, we multiply the numerators (top numbers) and multiply the denominators (bottom numbers). So, we have (3 × 10) / (4 × 3) which simplifies to 30/12. Since 3 is a common factor of both the numerator and the denominator, we can further simplify this to get 2 1/2 feet of ribbon used. Thus, Polly uses 2 1/2 feet of ribbon to wrap her mom's birthday present.