Nora's car weighs 6 2/3 tons and Ling's car weighs 2 1/4 tons. How much more does Nora's car weigh than Ling's car?

Write your answer as a fraction or as a whole or mixed number.

tons

1 answer

To find out how much more Nora's car weighs than Ling's car, we need to subtract Ling's weight from Nora's weight.

First, we convert the mixed numbers to improper fractions:

  1. Nora's car weighs 6 2/3 tons: \[ 6 \frac{2}{3} = \frac{6 \times 3 + 2}{3} = \frac{18 + 2}{3} = \frac{20}{3} \]

  2. Ling's car weighs 2 1/4 tons: \[ 2 \frac{1}{4} = \frac{2 \times 4 + 1}{4} = \frac{8 + 1}{4} = \frac{9}{4} \]

Now, we need to subtract these two fractions: \[ \frac{20}{3} - \frac{9}{4} \]

To do this, we need a common denominator. The least common multiple of 3 and 4 is 12.

Next, we convert each fraction to have the denominator of 12:

For \(\frac{20}{3}\): \[ \frac{20}{3} = \frac{20 \times 4}{3 \times 4} = \frac{80}{12} \]

For \(\frac{9}{4}\): \[ \frac{9}{4} = \frac{9 \times 3}{4 \times 3} = \frac{27}{12} \]

Now we can subtract: \[ \frac{80}{12} - \frac{27}{12} = \frac{80 - 27}{12} = \frac{53}{12} \]

Finally, we can convert \(\frac{53}{12}\) into a mixed number: \[ \frac{53}{12} = 4 \frac{5}{12} \]

Thus, Nora's car weighs \(4 \frac{5}{12}\) tons more than Ling's car.

The final answer is: \[ \boxed{4 \frac{5}{12}} \text{ tons} \]