Final answer:
The Associative Property of Addition allows for different groupings of numbers when adding, such as adding costs of supermarket items, without changing the total sum.
Step-by-step explanation:
A real-world problem that can be solved using the Associative Property of Addition is calculating the total cost of items bought from different departments in a supermarket for budgeting purposes. For example, imagine you bought fruits for $15, vegetables for $10, and bread for $5. You can group the fruits and vegetables together and then add the bread to get a total, or you can add the cost of the vegetables to the bread and then add the fruits. In mathematical terms, this would be (15 + 10) + 5 = 15 + (10 + 5). The Associative Property of Addition states that it does not matter how you group the numbers, the sum will still be the same.
To solve the problem, first, we add the cost of vegetables and bread: 10 + 5 = 15. Now we add this sum to the cost of fruits: 15 + 15 = 30. Thus, the total costs $30 regardless of how you group the items. This property is helpful because it allows for flexibility when adding multiple numbers, and it reassures us that the sum does not change even if the order of addition changes.