Question

For your birthday you go to the movies with three friends. You buy 4 boxes of popcorn, one for you and one for each of your friends. The tickets cost $5.75 each and the popcorn costs $4.25 per box. The total cost can be expressed by (4 • 5.75) + (4 • 4.25). Rewrite this expression using the distributive property and then solve. Explain why using the distributive property makes finding the total easier. Show your work.

Answer 1

Rewritten: 4(5.75 + 4.25)
solved: 4(10) = 40
explanation: it was easier this way because we did not have to work with decimals

Answer 2

(4 • 5.75) + (4 • 4.25) = 4(5.75 + 4.25)

4(5.75 + 4.25) = (4 • 5.75) + (4 • 4.25) = 23 + 17 = 40

Why using the distributive property makes finding the total easier?

Using the distributive property allows us to solve two simpler multiplication problems.