I am having a hard time with this word problem:
A road crew has 3/4 ton of stone to divide evenly among 4 sidewalks. How much stone does the crew need for each sidewalk.
a. 3/8t b. 3/16t c. 5/16t d. 5/24t
This is what I did: 4 divided by 3/4 is 4/1 x 4/3 is 12/3...not one of the choices! Help!
Is 3/16 a choice. Take 3/4 ton to divide between 4 sidewalks then you must divide the problem. Take 3/4 divide by 4 and you get 3/16. It should take them each 3/16 per sidewalk.
3/16*4=3/4
3/4 divided by 4 = 3/4 * 1/4 = 3/16
Thank you! I multiplied the wrong reciprocal, flipping 3/4 to 4/3!
You're welcome.
To solve this word problem, you need to divide the given amount of stone (3/4 ton) equally among the 4 sidewalks. To do this, you have to divide the total amount of stone by the number of sidewalks.
Here's the step-by-step way of solving it:
1. Start by setting up the division problem: 3/4 ton ÷ 4 sidewalks.
2. To divide fractions, you need to multiply by the reciprocal of the divisor. The reciprocal of 4 is 1/4.
So, you multiply: (3/4 ton) x (1/4 sidewalks).
3. When multiplying fractions, multiply the numerators (top numbers) and the denominators (bottom numbers) separately.
Multiply: 3 x 1 = 3 (numerator) and 4 x 4 = 16 (denominator).
4. Simplify the fraction if possible. In this case, the fraction is already in simplest form.
5. The final result is 3/16 of a ton of stone for each sidewalk.
So, the correct answer is (b) 3/16t.