harley: 4 1\8 - 4 1\3
My goodness harley,
You've got 3 answers and they are ALL different. What can you make of that
I haven't actually done your question yet, so lets see if I can't agree with at least one of the other responants.
Now, what you have here is
4 + 1/8 - 4 - 1/3 Be careful here, you have to take away the 1/3 as well as taking away the 4.
If I re-arrange this I get
4 - 4 +1/8 - 1/3 A minus sign always belongs to the number behind it. That is really important to understand and remember.
4-4=0 so we are left with
1/8 - 1/3 Now, if you understand what fractions mean then you will know that 1/8 is smaller than 1/3 [if you are not sure about this then you better post again and I will explain it]
Since 1/3 is bigger than 1/8, you should realize that the answer HAS to be negative. (YOu will just use this as a check when you are finished)
Now, just like the others told you, you need to get a common denominator before you can do the subtraction. That means that the number on the bottom has to be the same!
The multiples of 8 are 8,16,24,32, etc
The multiples of 3 are 3,6,9,12,15,18,21,24,27 etc.
The smallest number that is in both lists is 24. So you have to change both your fractions to 24ths.
Now 8x3=24 so
1/8 becomes 1*3 / 8*3 = 3/24 and
1/3 becomes 1*8 / 3*8 = 8/24
so now you have
1/8 - 1/3 => 3/24 - 8/24 => (3-8) / 24 => -5 /24
So I would vote for Anonymous4338's answer.
Thankyou to all 3 of you for answering. It doesn't matter if you get it wrong sometimes. I want people to get involved.