Question

please help me to solve these problems. Write the indicated terms. Represent "half a given number" if the given number is represented by: a. 6
b. a
c. 4a
d. 4y+3
e. 2-3x

Answer 1

did you try part a. ? what is 1/2 of 6 ?

Answer 2

yeah my ans is 3,is that correct?

Answer 3

yes. when you want 1/2 of 6 you write
\[ \frac{1}{2} \cdot 6\]
or
\[ \frac{6}{2} \]
then simplify
here you get 3

if you want 1/2 of a, all you can do is write it down
\[ \frac{a}{2} \]
and that is as simple as it gets

Answer 4

try c.

Answer 5

heres my ans. 3, a\2, 2a, 2y+3, 1-3x..is that correct?

Answer 6

the last 2 are not.

you do the same rule. for 4y+3
\[ \frac{4y+3}{2} \]
you can't really simplify it, but you can rewrite it.

to see how this works, let's use numbers. if we had
\[ \frac{4+2}{2} \]
we know the top is 4+2 or just 6, and 1/2 of 6 is 3
we can rewrite the problem as
\[ \frac{4}{2}+\frac{2}{2} \]
if we simplify both fractions we get 2+1 and that gives us 3

so back to
\[ \frac{4y+3}{2} \]
we can rewrite it as
\[ \frac{4y}{2} +\frac{3}{2}\]
and you can simplify the first fraction, but not the second, to get
\[ 2y +\frac{3}{2}\]
I would not bother, as this is not any simpler than leaving it as
\[ \frac{4y+3}{2} \]