Question

FRACTIONS It is John's birthday and his mother decided to give him a birthday party. She bought him three cakes for his party; cake one was sliced into 8 pieces, cake two was sliced into 10 pieces, and cake three was sliced into 12 pieces. If the guests at the party ate 4 slices of cake one, 7 slices of cake two and 5 slices of cake three; calculate the amount of cake that was eaten in total.​

Answer 1

There are 30 slices in total, so our denominator would be 30.

Now we simply have to add 4, 7 and 5. The answer to this would be 16.

So the amount of cake eaten in total is 16/30.

If your assignment is for improper fractions, I'm guessing the answer would be 16/3 instead.

Answer 2

1 37/60 cakes

Explanation:

You want the total cake eaten if 4 of 8 slices, 7 of 10 slices, and 5 of 12 slices were eaten.

Sum

The sum of the three fractions is ...

4/8 +7/10 +5/12

= 5/10 +7/10 +5/12 . . . . . . . 4/8 = 1/2 = 5/10

= 12/10 +5/12

= 6/5 +5/12

= (6·12 +5·5)/(5·12) = 97/60 = 1 37/60

The total amount of cake that was eaten was equivalent to 1 37/60 cakes.

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Additional comment

Your calculator can relieve the tedium of this calculation.