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A car repair shop offers its customers free coffee while they wait. By the end of the day, the coffee urn, which had started out with 6 3/8 gallons of coffee, was left with 3 7/8 gallons. How many gallons of coffee had been dispensed?
Write your answer as a fraction or as a whole or mixed number.
gallons
To find the amount of coffee that had been dispensed, we need to subtract the final amount of coffee from the initial amount.
The initial amount of coffee is 6 3/8 gallons.
The final amount of coffee is 3 7/8 gallons.
Let's subtract them:
6 3/8 - 3 7/8
To subtract the whole numbers, we have 6 - 3 = 3.
Next, let's subtract the fractions.
3/8 - 7/8 = (3 - 7) / 8 = -4/8 = -1/2 (the negative sign denotes that there was a decrease in coffee).
Combining the whole number and the fraction, we get:
3 1/2 gallons
Therefore, 3 1/2 gallons of coffee had been dispensed.
Wrong
Apologies for the mistake.
To find the amount of coffee that had been dispensed, we need to subtract the final amount of coffee from the initial amount.
The initial amount of coffee is 6 3/8 gallons.
The final amount of coffee is 3 7/8 gallons.
To subtract the fractions, we need to have a common denominator. In this case, the smallest common denominator is 8.
6 3/8 = (6 * 8 + 3) / 8 = 51/8 gallons
3 7/8 = (3 * 8 + 7) / 8 = 31/8 gallons
Now, let's subtract the final amount from the initial amount:
51/8 - 31/8 = (51 - 31) / 8 = 20/8 = 2 4/8 = 2 1/2 gallons
Therefore, 2 1/2 gallons of coffee had been dispensed.
To find the number of gallons of coffee that had been dispensed, we need to subtract the final amount of coffee from the initial amount.
The initial amount of coffee is given as 6 3/8 gallons, and the final amount is given as 3 7/8 gallons.
To subtract these two fractions, we need to find a common denominator. The common denominator of 8 and 8 is also 8.
Now let's subtract the fractions:
6 3/8 - 3 7/8 = (6 - 3) + (3/8 - 7/8)
The whole numbers can be subtracted straightforwardly:
6 - 3 = 3
Now let's subtract the fractions:
3/8 - 7/8 = (3 - 7)/8 = -4/8
Simplifying the resulting fraction, we get:
-4/8 = -1/2
So, the amount of coffee dispensed is -1/2 gallons.
However, it doesn't make sense to have a negative amount of coffee dispensed. Therefore, we need to reevaluate our calculation.
The expression "-1/2 gallons" indicates that there was an error in the calculation or the given information. It's not possible to dispense a negative amount of coffee.
Please double-check the given information and calculations to ensure accuracy.