Can someone help me figure out the way to solve this math word problem?
Gerri bought a small bag of peanuts and ate 1/2 of the peanuts on Monday. On Tuesday, she ate 1/2 of the peanuts that were left. On Wednesday, she ate 1/2 of the peanuts that were left from Tuesday. She ate the rest of the peanuts on Thursday. What fraction of the whole bag of peanuts did she eat on Thursday?
Tuesday morning she had 1/2 left.
Wednesday morning she had 1/4 left
Thursday morning she had 1/8 left
She ate those.
Thank you Mr. Pursley:
Is this how you would break it down.
1/2 + 1/2 = 1 (Monday and Tuesday)
1/2 of 1 = 1/2 (Wednesday)
Now, I am lost. Can you show me the break down of this problem.
Monday: 1/2
Tuesday: 1/2 * 1/2 = 1/4
Wednesday: 1/2 * 1/4 = 1/8
To solve this math word problem, we need to go step by step and use fractions to represent the amount of peanuts Gerri ate each day.
Let's start with the whole bag of peanuts. Since we want to represent this as a fraction, we can say that the whole bag is equal to 1/1 or simply 1.
On Monday, Gerri ate 1/2 of the peanuts. This means she had 1 - 1/2 = 1/2 of the peanuts left after Monday.
On Tuesday, Gerri ate 1/2 of the peanuts that were left from Monday, which means she ate (1/2) * (1/2) = 1/4 of the whole bag of peanuts. This means she had 1/2 - 1/4 = 1/4 of the peanuts left after Tuesday.
On Wednesday, Gerri ate 1/2 of the peanuts that were left from Tuesday, which means she ate (1/4) * (1/2) = 1/8 of the whole bag of peanuts. This means she had 1/4 - 1/8 = 1/8 of the peanuts left after Wednesday.
Finally, on Thursday, Gerri ate the rest of the peanuts, which means she ate the remaining 1/8 of the whole bag of peanuts.
To determine the fraction of the whole bag of peanuts Gerri ate on Thursday, we need to sum up all the fractions she ate. Adding 1/2 + 1/4 + 1/8 + 1/8 gives us a total of 7/8.
Therefore, Gerri ate 7/8 of the whole bag of peanuts on Thursday.