Question

Show how you can use communitive property to simplify the evaluation of the expression -7/16 -1/4 -5/16.

Answer 1

Since you can directly sum two fractions with the same denominator, we can rearrange the sum as follows:

$-\dfrac{7}{16} - \dfrac{5}{16} - \dfrac{1}{4}$

Now we can sum the first two fraction easily:

$\dfrac{-7-5}{16} - \dfrac{1}{4} = \dfrac{-12}{16} - \dfrac{1}{4}$

We can simplify the first fraction: 12/16=3/4. So, we can sum the two fractions again because they have the same denominator:

$\dfrac{-12}{16} - \dfrac{1}{4} = \dfrac{-3}{4} - \dfrac{1}{4} = \dfrac{-3-1}{4} = \dfrac{-4}{4} = -1$