How do you subtract fractions that have whole numbers?

Answer 1

Your question is very inaccurate. Do you mean like 3 - 1/2 ?

or do you mean 1 and 1/2 - 1 and 1/3?

Either way I'll answer both.

1) 3 - 1/2.

What you have to do is make the whole number into a fraction. In this case we can make the 3 in to 3/1 because they are exactly the same thing. Now 3/1 - 1/2

We have to make the denominators the same. 1 can fit into 2 two times. What you do the top you have to do to the bottom. So 1x 2 = 2 and 3 x 2 = 6. Now it looks like this:

6/2 - 1/2. We minus the top numbers: 6 - 1 = 5. So 5/2 is our answer. This is an improper fraction so me make it into a mixed fraction, which is 2 and 1/2.

2) 1 and 1/2 - 1 and 1/3

We have to make these mixed fractions into improper fractions:

3/2 - 4/3. The denominators can both fit into 6. This is what you need to look for. 2 x 3 = 6 and 3 x 2 = 6

9/6 - 8/6. Now our problem is easy. 9 - 8 = 1 and then our answer looks like this:

1/6. This is your answer.