Question

Jason measured rainfall for a science project. Last week it rained 3 1/8 inches in all. This week it rained 1 7/8 inches on one day and 2 3/4 inches on another. How many more inches did it rain this week than last week? Explain how you found your answer.

Answer 1

1 1/2 inches

Explanation:

To find how much more a second number is than a first number, the first is subtracted from fhe second. Here, we want to know how much more the second week total is than the first, so we subtract the first week's total from the second week's total.

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We find the second week's total by adding up the values associated with the different days in the second week.

second week's total = 1 7/8 +2 3/4 = (1 +2) +(7/8 +6/8) = 3 13/8 = 4 5/8

Then the difference is ...

second week's total - first week's total

= 4 5/8 -3 1/8 = (4 -3) +(5/8 -1/8) = 1 4/8 = 1 1/2

It rained 1 1/2 inches more this week than last week.