A running back carries the ball five times. Find his total yardage if the carries were 8,-3,-1, 16 and 6 yards. What the total yardage?

Question

anonymous · Answer

the distance from 8 to -3 is 11 units
distance from -3 to -1 is 2 units
-1 to 16 is 17 units
and 16 to 6 is 10 units
add them all together, the total yardage is 39 yards.

anonymous · Answer

I'm not clear on how you get your answer I keep coming up with 26

anonymous · Answer

add all of the unit values together$$11 + 2 + 17 + 10$$

anonymous · Answer

you can't look at the absolute value difference of the numbers, like |8| - |3| because that'd be 5, but from 8 to -3 on a number line is 11 units, not 5.

anonymous · Answer

Meegan, 
Thank you! I understand and appreciate you coming back to explain things to me.