Question

Sarah and Nathan each picked a bucket of strawberries. Sarah picked 4 1/4 pounds, and Nathan picked 3 3/4 pounds. How many pounds did they pick altogether?

Answer 1

The first step here would be to write an equation for this problem.

4 $\frac{1}{4}$ + 3 $\frac{3}{4}$ = ?

Now that we have our equation, we can solve it. But rather than converting both the mixed fractions into improper fractions, there is a simpler way we can solve.
We can separate the equation into two simple equations. Which will be adding both the whole numbers and then both the fractions

4 + 3 = ?

$\frac{1}{4}$ + $\frac{3}{4}$ = ?

Now we solve.

4 + 3 = 7

$\frac{1}{4}$ + $\frac{3}{4}$ = $\frac{4}{4}$

Now that we solved both our separate equations we can get our final answer by combining both answers.

7 $\frac{4}{4}$

Notice how our answer can be simplified because when both the numerator and denominator are the same, they equal one whole.
After converting $\frac{4}{4}$ to one whole we will get our final, simplified answer.

7 $\frac{4}{4}$ = 8

So both Sarah and Nathan picked 8 buckets of strawberries.

Answer 2

4 + 3 is 7, 1/4 + 3/4 is one pound. so 4+3+1= 8..................