Question

Pam walks 7/8 of a mile to school. Paul walks 1/2 of a mile to school. How much farther does Pam walk than Paul?

Answer 1

Pam walks 3/8 of a mile further than Paul.

Explanation:

We can write a formula for this as:

`d = M - L`

Where:

`d` is the difference in the walks
`M` is the distance Pam walks
`L` is the distance Paul walks.

Substituting the information from the problem gives:

`d = 7/8 - 1/2`

In order to subtract or add fractions they need to be over a common denominator. For this problem the common denominator can be `8`. Therefore we need to ultiply `1/2` by the appropriate form of `1` to get this common denominator:

`d = 7/8 - (4/4 xx 1/2)`

`d = 7/8 - (4 xx 1)/(4 xx 2)`

`d = 7/8 - 4/8`

We can now subtract these fractions:

`d = (7 - 4)/8`

`d = 3/8`