Final answer:
Jerry bought 18 1/3 feet of wood and used 7 5/12 feet. By converting to improper fractions, finding a common denominator, and subtracting, we find Jerry has 10 5/6 feet of wood left.
Step-by-step explanation:
Jerry bought 18 1/3 feet of wood and used 7 5/12 feet of it. To find out how much wood he has left, we need to subtract the amount used from the total amount he bought.
First, we will convert the mixed numbers to improper fractions to make it easier to subtract. For 18 1/3 feet, we multiply 18 by 3 (the denominator), which is 54, and then add 1 to get 55. So, 18 1/3 is the same as 55/3. Next, for 7 5/12 feet, we multiply 7 by 12 (the denominator) to get 84 and then add 5 for a total of 89. So, 7 5/12 is the same as 89/12.
Now we have:
55/3 − 89/12
To subtract these fractions, we need a common denominator, which in this case is 12. We'll convert 55/3 to 12ths by multiplying both the numerator and denominator by 4. So, we have:
(55 * 4) / (3 * 4) − 89/12
220/12 − 89/12 = (220 − 89) / 12
131/12
Dividing 131 by 12, we get 10 with a remainder of 11, so the fraction is 11/12. Therefore, Jerry has 10 11/12 feet of wood left. The correct answer, rounded to a fraction with a denominator of 6, is 10 5/6 feet (Option a).