2 Answers

I must be way off, I came up with 1/8
1+1=2, 5+11=16, so 2/16 or 1/8 am I close? I don't really remember fraction rules...

Hi Julie: You have to have a common denominator in order to add or subtract a fraction. Otherwise, it is like trying to add apples and oranges. You know that if you add 1/2 and 1/4, you get 3/4 (think of a pizza cut into four equal parts). You would never add 1/2 and 1/4 and say you had 2/6 (which is 1/3).
Once you get the denominators the same (by finding the lowest common multiple of the denominators, in this case 5 and 11....the lowest number is the product of the two, 5 x 11 = 55), you then multiply each numerator by the same number you used to multiply the denominator (that keeps the fraction the same value as when you started).
You multiplied the denominator 5 by 11 to get 55. You must multiply the numerator 1 by 11 also. 11/55 (which is equal to 1/5 if reduced).
You multipled 11 by 5 to get to 55, so multiply the numerator 1 by 5. 5/55 (same as 1/11 when reduced).
11 + 5 = 16/55
A fraction tells you two things. The denominator tells you how many parts one whole thing has been divided into. For example, 1/2 means something has been divided into 2 pieces. 1/3 means something was divided into three equal parts, etc. Think of a pie, usually divided into 8 pieces (each piece is 1/8 of the pie. The whole pie would be 8/8. 4/8 would be half the pie. 2/8 would be one-quarter of the pie.
The numerator tells you how many pieces of the whole thing you have. When we added the numerators, we found that we had 16 parts of the whole thing that was divided into 55 parts. The denominators are just transferred to the answer.
Does that make sense?

I haven't had basic math in years...! Thank you for the reminder lesson....

JHHARLAN: I have to apologize for being so anal about stuff like this. I'm OK at basic math stuff and really like to try to explain and help people understand, but I am out of the box alot of the time. I hope I didn't come off as being a know-it-all, cuz I certainly am not. Happy Day