To solve how much sugar Ms. Johnson used when she baked the birthday cake, we need to find half of the sugar available, which is \( \frac{7}{8} \) cups.
Here are the steps to calculate this:
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Understand the problem: We have \( \frac{7}{8} \) cups of sugar, and Ms. Johnson uses \( \frac{1}{2} \) of that amount.
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Set up the multiplication: To find \( \frac{1}{2} \) of \( \frac{7}{8} \), we multiply \( \frac{1}{2} \) by \( \frac{7}{8} \): \[ \text{Amount used} = \frac{1}{2} \times \frac{7}{8} \]
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Multiply the fractions: To multiply fractions, multiply the numerators together and the denominators together: \[ \frac{1 \times 7}{2 \times 8} = \frac{7}{16} \]
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Result: Ms. Johnson used \( \frac{7}{16} \) cups of sugar.
So the final answer is that Ms. Johnson used \( \frac{7}{16} \) cups of sugar for the cake.