When Dustin had one cat, he needed to serve 1/2 of a can of cat food each day. Now that Dustin has adopted a second cat, he needs to serve a total of 5 cans each day. How much extra food is needed to feed the second cat?
Write your answer as a fraction or as a whole or mixed number.
cans
If Dustin needed to serve 1/2 can of cat food each day when he had one cat, then when he has two cats, he needs to serve 2 * (1/2) = 1 can of cat food per day.
Therefore, the second cat needs an extra 1 - (1/2) = 1/2 can of cat food per day. Answer: \boxed{\frac{1}{2}\text{ can}}.
What’s the answer
The answer is 1/2 can.
To determine how much extra food is needed to feed the second cat, we first need to find out how much food Dustin needs to serve each day for the first cat alone. We know that when he had one cat, he needed to serve 1/2 of a can of cat food each day.
Now that he has two cats, he needs to serve a total of 5 cans each day. Let's subtract the amount of food needed for the first cat from the total amount of food needed.
5 - 1/2 = ?
To subtract fractions, we need a common denominator. Let's convert the whole number 5 to a fraction by giving it a denominator of 2 (since 1/2 already has a denominator of 2).
5 can be written as 5/1, and when we multiply the numerator and denominator by 2, we get:
(5/1) * (2/2) = 10/2
Now, we can subtract the two fractions:
10/2 - 1/2 = 9/2
So, the extra food needed to feed the second cat is 9/2 cans.