Willow Carrillo

2022-01-23

Erica bought $3\frac{1}{2}$ yars of fabric. If she uses $\frac{2}{3}$ of the fabric to make a curtain, how much will she have left?

baltimi

Expert

Step 1
You know, I really don’t like the $3\frac{1}{2}$ notation, I think it’s a lot more confusing than writing 3.5 or even $\frac{7}{2}$. I’ll use the latter here, to make the math easier.
Okay, Erica started with $\frac{7}{2}$ yards of fabric. Then, she uses $\frac{2}{3}$ of that. But how much is $\frac{2}{3}$ of $\frac{7}{2}?$ All you have to do is multiply!
$\frac{7}{2}\cdot \frac{2}{3}=\frac{14}{6}=\frac{7}{3}$
Alright, she used $\frac{7}{3}$ yards of fabric in the curtain, if you take that out of the total how much will be left?
$\frac{7}{2}-\frac{7}{3}=\frac{21-14}{6}=\frac{7}{6}$
Here it is, she will have $\frac{7}{6}$ yards of fabricleft. If you want the answer in that notation, it is $1\frac{1}{6}$

Maritza Mccall

Expert

Step 1
So, Erica bought $3\frac{1}{2}$ yards of fabric. o make this easier to work with, we convert it to an improper fraction. Now we know Erica has $\frac{7}{2}$ yards of fabric.
Next, she uses $\frac{2}{3}$ of it. This means that $\frac{1}{3}\left(=1-\frac{2}{3}\right)$ of the fabric is remaining.
To get $\frac{1}{3}$ of $\frac{7}{2}$, we just multiply them:
$\left(\frac{1}{3}\left(\left(\frac{7}{2}\right)=\frac{7}{6}$
So now we know Erica has $\frac{7}{6}$ yards of fabric remaining. This is equivalent to $1\frac{1}{6}$ yards, or 1 yard and 6 inches.

RizerMix

Expert

Step 1
She has
$3\frac{1}{2}=\frac{7}{2}=3.5$
yards and uses
$\frac{2}{3}=0.6$
So she has $\frac{1}{3}=0.3$
left that's
$\frac{7}{2}×\frac{1}{3}=\frac{7}{6}$
$1\frac{1}{6}=1.16$ yards,

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