SOLUTION: You went trout fishing and caught 6 trout fish. The lengths are 8 5/8, 10 1/2, 9 1/4, 8 3/4, 10 2/3 and 9 5/6. What is the average length of the trout you caught? Please explain.

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Question 153411: You went trout fishing and caught 6 trout fish. The lengths are 8 5/8, 10 1/2, 9 1/4, 8 3/4, 10 2/3 and 9 5/6. What is the average length of the trout you caught? Please explain. I get 1383/144 or 9 87/144 but this is wrong, what am I doing wrong?
Found 2 solutions by stanbon, Earlsdon:
Answer by stanbon(75887) (Show Source):
You can put this solution on YOUR website!
Add the numbers to get 309/5
Divide by 6 to get 103/10 or 10.3
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Cheers,
Stan H.

Answer by Earlsdon(6294) (Show Source):
You can put this solution on YOUR website!
As you know, to find the average or mean of a set of numbers, you add the numbers then divide the sum by the number of numbers (6 in this case) you have added up. With fractions/mixed numbers, such as you have here, of course, there is a little more work to do because you must first convert the mixed numbers to improper fractions then find the least common denominator (LCD) before you can add them all together. Here we go! Convert the mixed numbers to improper fractions:
8 5/8 = 69/8
10 1/2 = 21/2
9 1/4 = 37/4
8 3/4 = 35/4
10 2/3 = 32/3
9 5/6 = 59/6
Notice that denominators will all divide into 24, so this is our LCD, so now we must convert each improper fraction to 24ths.

Adding the right sides, we get:
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Now divide the numerator by 6 (or multiply by ), the number of trout.
Reduce this improper fraction to...
9 87/144 = which is precisely the answer that you got!
Why do think that your answer is wrong?