Bill ate 1/4 pound of trail mix on his first break during a hiking trip. On his second break, he ate 1/6 pound. How many pounds of trail mix did he eat during both breaks?

1 Answer
Aug 8, 2017

See a solution process below:

Explanation:

We can write that on his two breaks Bill at:

#(1/4 + 1/6)"lb"# of trail mix.

We now need to put the two fractions over a common denominator in order to add the fractions. The LCD for these two fractions is #12#. We need to multiply each fraction by the appropriate form of #1# to ensure each fraction has a denominator of #12#:

#([3/3 xx 1/4] + [2/2 xx 1/6])"lb" =>#

#([(3 xx 1)/(3 xx 4)] + [(2 xx 1)/(2 xx 6)])"lb" =>#

#(3/12 + 2/12)"lb" =>#

#(3 + 2)/12"lb" =>#

#5/12"lb"#

Bill ate #5/15"lb"# of trail mix on the two breaks.