Carl's class is collecting canned food for a food drive. The goal is to collect 50 pounds of food. So far they have collected 44 1/4 pounds of food. How many more pounds of food do they need to collect to meet the goal? [__] [__]/[__]

1 answer

To find out how many more pounds of food Carl's class needs to collect, we can subtract the amount they have already collected from their goal.

  1. Convert the goal and collected food to improper fractions:

    • The goal is 50 pounds, which can be written as 501.
    • The amount collected is 44 1/4 pounds, which is 44+14=44.25 or 1774 (since 44×4+1=177).
  2. Find the difference: Amount still needed=GoalCollected =5044.25 To make the calculation easier, we can work with the fractions: =5011774 We need a common denominator to subtract these fractions. The common denominator is 4.

    Convert 50 to a fraction with a denominator of 4: 50=50×41×4=2004

  3. Subtract the amounts: 20041774=2001774=234

  4. Convert 234 to a mixed number: 23÷4=5remainder 3 Thus, 234=534.

Therefore, Carl's class needs to collect 5 3/4 more pounds of food to meet their goal.

So the answer is 5 [3]/[4].