Carol and Mary are the two tallest basketball players on their high school team. Carol is 69 1/3 inches tall. And Mary is 70 1/4 inches tall. How much taller is Mary than Carol?

Question

anonymous · Answer

It is simple subtraction of fractions.....
we first convert them to improper fractions as follows:
Carol's height :  69 1/3 = 208/3
Mary's height  :  70 1/4 = 281/4
Now we find their denominators are not same, so we find LCD of 3 and 4, which is 12
So we make both fraction to have same base as follows

208      4         832
----* --- = ------
   3       4           12
and
281     3         843
----*--- = ------
   4       3          12

We find 843> 832  so 843/12 > 832/12

Now subtracting

843      832         843 - 832         11
---- - ----- = ----------- = ----
  12         12                12                12

So Mary is taller than Carol by 11/12 inch