Can somebody please help explain what I'm supposed to do?
"Maya's school held an aluminum collection program in which they collected aluminum and brought it to be recycled. In the first week, Maya collected 4/20 lb of aluminum and her friend Abigail collected 7/8 lb.
a. which girl collected more aluminum?
b. how much aluminum did the two girls collect?"
Ah, thank you for clarifying! :D
To answer these questions, we need to compare the amounts of aluminum collected by Maya and Abigail and then find the total amount collected by both girls. Let's break it down step by step:
a. To determine which girl collected more aluminum, we need to compare the fractions 4/20 lb and 7/8 lb. Since these two fractions have different denominators, we need to find a common denominator. In this case, the least common multiple (LCM) of 20 and 8 is 40.
To convert 4/20 lb into 40ths, we multiply both the numerator and denominator by 2, giving us 8/40 lb.
Now we can compare 8/40 lb and 7/8 lb. To make the comparison easier, we can convert 7/8 lb to 40ths as well. To do this, we multiply both the numerator and denominator by 5, resulting in 35/40 lb.
Comparing 8/40 lb and 35/40 lb, we see that 35/40 lb is larger than 8/40 lb. Therefore, Abigail collected more aluminum than Maya.
b. To find the total amount of aluminum collected by both girls, we need to add the fractions 4/20 lb and 7/8 lb together. Since the denominators are different, we need to find a common denominator. As mentioned earlier, the LCM of 20 and 8 is 40.
We can convert 4/20 lb to 40ths by multiplying both the numerator and denominator by 2, giving us 8/40 lb.
Now we can add 8/40 lb and 7/8 lb together. This is done by adding the numerators while keeping the common denominator of 40. We get:
8/40 lb + 35/40 lb = (8 + 35)/40 lb = 43/40 lb
So, the two girls collected a total of 43/40 lb of aluminum.
In part 'a', you are supposed to compare the amount of aluminium that both girls collected, and identify which one collected more. To do this, you have to figure out whether 4/20 or 7/8 is bigger, for which you must multiply them to give a common denominator.
In part 'b', you are supposed to find the total aluminium collected by adding up the given amounts of aluminium, for which, again, you must have a common denominator.