I'm an old lady going back to school and need HELP.

Question

I'm an old lady going back to school and need HELP.

Simplify:
5/8 + 2 1/3 x 3 1/4=
(five eighths plus two and one third times three and one fourth)

Answer 1

Well, old lady! This is one of the very best math websites around:

http://www.aaamath.com/

Go into the fractions section (list on the left), and then choose the topic you need to know about. The explanations and examples are excellent.

Basically, for adding fractions you have to find a common denominator first. For multiplying, you don't have to do that.

Answer 2

Thanks so much

Answer 3

You're welcome!

Answer 4

To simplify the expression 5/8 + 2 1/3 x 3 1/4, we first need to simplify the mixed numbers into improper fractions.

To convert a mixed number into an improper fraction, you multiply the whole number by the denominator of the fraction part, and add it to the numerator. The result becomes the new numerator of the improper fraction, and the denominator remains the same.

For example, converting 2 1/3 to an improper fraction:

2 * 3 (denominator of the fraction) + 1 = 7
So, 2 1/3 is equivalent to the improper fraction 7/3.

Similarly, converting 3 1/4 to an improper fraction:

3 * 4 (denominator of the fraction) + 1 = 13
So, 3 1/4 is equivalent to the improper fraction 13/4.

Now, let's simplify the expression using the updated fractions:

5/8 + 7/3 x 13/4

Next, we need to perform the multiplication. When multiplying fractions, you multiply the numerators together to get the new numerator, and the denominators together to get the new denominator.

So, (7/3) x (13/4) becomes (7 x 13) / (3 x 4) = 91/12.

Now, we have:
5/8 + 91/12

To add fractions, they need to have a common denominator.

To find the common denominator, we need to find the Least Common Multiple (LCM) of 8 and 12, which is 24.

So, we need to convert both fractions to have a denominator of 24:

(5/8) x (3/3) = 15/24

(91/12) x (2/2) = 182/24

Now, we have:
15/24 + 182/24

Adding the fractions, we simply add the numerators while keeping the denominator the same:

15/24 + 182/24 = (15 + 182)/24 = 197/24

Therefore, the simplified form of 5/8 + 2 1/3 x 3 1/4 is 197/24.