LCM & Meatloaf: Solving Tom's Problem

[Acesoar]

Question: Tom is making meatloaf with 3/4 pound of turkey and 5/6 pound of beef. What is the LCM he should use to find the total number of pounds of meat?

I keep getting 15/2 or 7 & 1/2, I'm not sure how to check this though and I'm also not sure how I use that answer to find the total pounds of meat? Any help would be greatly appreciated, Thank you.(Not sure if I'm in the right section, and this might be an extremely easy problem to many of you, but I am a father and my daughter is in 6th grade and and at this time of the night I got frustrated to the point that I needed to vent and trying to get some help solving this is helping me with that, lol)

 

[RLBrown]

Question: Tom is making meatloaf with 3/4 pound of turkey and 5/6 pound of beef. What is the LCM he should use to find the total number of pounds of meat?

12 is the LCM use as the common denominator. Do you see why?

 

[Acesoar]

I know the LCD is 12, but I thought that the LCM of a fraction is LCM/HCF?

 

[MarkFL]

Question: Tom is making meatloaf with 3/4 pound of turkey and 5/6 pound of beef. What is the LCM he should use to find the total number of pounds of meat?

I keep getting 15/2 or 7 & 1/2, I'm not sure how to check this though and I'm also not sure how I use that answer to find the total pounds of meat? Any help would be greatly appreciated, Thank you.

I would first look at the prime factorization of both denominators:

$$4=2\cdot2$$

$$6=2\cdot3$$

We see that the greatest common divisor (GCD) or greatest common factor is 2.

And so the LCD will be the product of the denominators divided by the GCD

$$\text{LCD}=\frac{4\cdot6}{2}=12$$

Now, you want to multiply each fraction by 1 in the form:

$$1=\frac{n}{n}$$

where $n$ is the LCD divided by the denominator in the fraction you are converting. Can you use this method to convert each fraction to an equivalent fraction having a denominator of 12?

(Not sure if I'm in the right section, and this might be an extremely easy problem to many of you, but I am a father and my daughter is in 6th grade and and at this time of the night I got frustrated to the point that I needed to vent and trying to get some help solving this is helping me with that, lol)

You posted in the correct forum, and you showed what you've tried, so you did well. There are problems that each of us here would find humbilng, so we don't tend to look at a problem and say, "Oh, that's easy...why are they asking for help?"

 

[DrWahoo]

Question: Tom is making meatloaf with 3/4 pound of turkey and 5/6 pound of beef. What is the LCM he should use to find the total number of pounds of meat?

I keep getting 15/2 or 7 & 1/2, I'm not sure how to check this though and I'm also not sure how I use that answer to find the total pounds of meat? Any help would be greatly appreciated, Thank you.(Not sure if I'm in the right section, and this might be an extremely easy problem to many of you, but I am a father and my daughter is in 6th grade and and at this time of the night I got frustrated to the point that I needed to vent and trying to get some help solving this is helping me with that, lol)

That is what we are here for! Everyone here, I am sure, has some inadequacy with a certain type of math. I know I do, so the best way to get help is to ask a question with the information you know. Great Job asking the question, and even better job helping your daughter and caring about education. We are here to help, not just give answers; we all want everyone to understand the process.

Thanks for posting!