SOLUTION: Fred and Tom mowed lawns for a day. Fred earned x/y times as much money as did Tom. Determine what fraction of total money earned was Tom's. Not sure how to solve.

Question 1197736: Fred and Tom mowed lawns for a day. Fred earned x/y times as much money as did Tom.
Determine what fraction of total money earned was Tom's.
Not sure how to solve.
Found 3 solutions by ikleyn, math_tutor2020, MathTherapy:
Answer by ikleyn(52832)   (Show Source): You can put this solution on YOUR website!
.

Let M be the money earned by Tom. Then Fred earned money. Total they earned is this sum T = = . (1) We want to express M via T. From (1), M = . (2) It is the expression you want to get.

Solved.

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Keep in mind that the final formula in the post by @josgarithmetic is incorrect



How do I know it ?   - - -   Because his formula mixes in the denominator values with dimension of money
                                          with dimensionless value of 1.

So, ignore his post for the safety of your mind.

////////////////

comment from student : Why was 1 added to x/y ?

My response : My formula (2) follows directly from formula (1).

                       Simple algebra.   If you don't know it (asking such question), it means that you are in wrong class (if any).

Answer by math_tutor2020(3817)   (Show Source): You can put this solution on YOUR website!

This is a supplement to @ikleyn's post.

The student asks "Why was 1 added to x/y?"

A better response would be to say "Because we factored out the M from to end up with "

The distributive rule is being applied
a*(b+c) = a*b+a*c
Factoring is effectively going in reverse of distributing.

Answer by MathTherapy(10555)   (Show Source): You can put this solution on YOUR website!
Fred and Tom mowed lawns for a day. Fred earned x/y times as much money as did Tom.
Determine what fraction of total money earned was Tom's.
Not sure how to solve.

Let amount Tom earned, be T Since Fred earned times as much money as did Tom, Fred earned . Together, they made: Fraction of total money, earned by Tom:

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