Question

The Sahara Desert is the largest desert in the world. It covers 3,500,000 square miles. The Australian Desert is the second largest desert. It covers 2,030,000 square miles less than the Sahara. How big is the Australian Desert?

Answer 1

`1,470,000` square miles

Explanation:

So first since you want to find the number of square miles in the Australian Desert, you need to subtract the number of square miles that the Australian desert is less than the Sahara, from the number of square miles in the Sahara. You need to do:

`3,500,000 - 2,030,000`

This will equal to, by subtracting:

`1,470,000` square miles.

Answer 2

`3,500,000 - 2,030,000 = 1,470,000` square miles.

Explanation:

Many students find "word sums" difficult.

Understanding the information which is presented is the the first step in deciding what operation to do.

Read the facts carefully and break them down into smaller sentences.

The Sahara is the largest desert.
The Australian desert is the second largest desert. (This means its area is LESS than that of the Sahara)

We are given the size of the Sahara, `(3,500,000)` but not the size of the Australian desert.

The area of the Australian desert is less by `2,030,000` square miles.

This is the amount we have to subtract from the area of the Sahara to find the sizeof the Australian desert:

`3,500,000 - 2,030,000 = 1,470,000` square miles.

Note that the calculation is easier, the problem is deciding which operation to do...