A carpenter used 3 3/16 pounds of nails for a job. After the job was over, the remaining ails weighed 1 1/16 pounds. How many pounds of nails di the carpenter have at the beginning of the job? PLEASE HELP!
3 3/16 + 1 1/16 = ?
could I write that as x - 3 3/16 = 1 1/16 and x = 4 1/4?
I don't see why. You can't have two different values for x in this problem.
This is a simple addition problem.
The carpenter uses 3 3/16 pounds of nails.
He has 1 1/16 pounds left.
To find how many pounds he had at the beginning, add the two.
A similar problem would be if you spent $20 and had $5 left. How much money did you start with? Obviously you started with $25.
To find out how many pounds of nails the carpenter had at the beginning of the job, we need to subtract the weight of the remaining nails from the total weight used for the job.
The carpenter used 3 3/16 pounds of nails for the job and 1 1/16 pounds of nails remained.
First, we need to convert the mixed fractions to improper fractions:
3 3/16 pounds = (3 * 16 + 3)/16 = 51/16 pounds
1 1/16 pounds = (1 * 16 + 1)/16 = 17/16 pounds
Now, we subtract the weight of the remaining nails from the total weight used for the job:
51/16 pounds - 17/16 pounds = 34/16 pounds
Next, we can simplify the fraction:
34/16 pounds = (2 * 17)/(2 * 8) = 17/8 pounds
Therefore, the carpenter had 17/8 pounds of nails at the beginning of the job.