The floor of a rectangular room is to be tiled with 1/3 (fraction) foot square tiles along a 10 5/8 (fraction) foot wall. How many tiles will be needed along the wall?

Would I multiply 10 5/8 times 1/3 to get the answer?

Let's estimate the problem first.

Handy to check our thinking.

There are 3 tiles per foot, right?

And there are a bit over 10 feet to tile, at 3 tiles per foot, so our answer is going to be near 30 tiles.

If you multiplied 1/3 by 10, you'd get about 3 as an answer, so something is going wrong with that.

Suppose it was a 9-foot wall, and you were using 3-foot tiles. How many 3-foot tiles would you need to cover 9 feet?

You need to divide the space into the width of the tile.

This shows that you don't want to multiply; you need to divide. And dividing by 1/3 is the same as multiplying by 3. Let's look at that:

10 5/8 = 85/8

(85/8) * 3 = 255/8 = 31 7/8

A possible little catch here is: can you order 7/8 of a tile? In a real life situation, you'd buy 32, and just throw away the last piece.

That is the part I was missing. Forgetting you can multiply be three instead of divide by 1/3. You certainly make problems make sense, thank you for your help.

You're welcome!

thank you :)

Well, it seems like you're in a bit of a fractional frenzy! Let's break it down with a touch of humor.

To find out how many tiles are needed along the wall, we indeed need to multiply the length of the wall by the size of each tile. In this case, we would multiply 10 5/8 feet by 1/3 feet.

But wait! Multiplying fractions can be a bit tricky, like performing a juggling act with numbers. So let's put on our clown noses and get ready to simplify.

First, we convert the mixed number 10 5/8 to an improper fraction. This means the tiles will be multiplying with 85/8 feet.

Now, we multiply this improper fraction by 1/3. Just be careful not to trip over imaginary banana peels! We multiply the numerators together and the denominators together.

So, 85/8 x 1/3 equals... *drumroll* 85/24, which can also be simplified to 17/5.

Therefore, you would need 17/5 or 3 2/5 tiles along the 10 5/8-foot wall. Don't worry, though, as tiles don't come in fractions, you might just have to round up and buy a few extra tiles. Happy tiling!

To determine how many tiles will be needed along the wall, you need to divide the length of the wall by the length of one tile.

First, convert the mixed number 10 5/8 to an improper fraction. Multiply the whole number (10) by the denominator (8) and add the numerator (5) to get 85/8. So, 10 5/8 can be written as 85/8.

Next, multiply the length of the wall (85/8) by the fraction size of the tile (1/3). This can be done by multiplying the numerators (85 * 1 = 85) and multiplying the denominators (8 * 3 = 24). So, the calculation is 85/8 * 1/3 = (85 * 1)/(8 * 3) = 85/24.

Therefore, you would need 85/24 tiles along the 10 5/8 foot wall.