Question

Neil has 3 partially full cans of white paint. They contain 1/3 gallon 1/5 gallon and 1/2 gallon of paint. About how much paint does Neil have in all.

Answer 1

31/30 or 1 & 1/30

Explanation:

First we need to create a denominator divisible by 3, 5, and two. The lowest common denominator would be 30.

we need to make them all have this denominator, so, for example for one third we would have the equation 1/3 = x/30

in this case x = 10 to make the two fractions equal. Do this with the two other fractions to get 1/5 = 6/30 and 1/2 = 15/30

now all 3 fractions have a common denominator, so we can add them now.

10/30 + 6/30 + 15/30 = 31/30