Owen lives 145.25 kilometers from Houston, Texas. Sharon lives 209.5 kilometers from Houston. What is the difference between these two distances?
The correct answer and explanation is:
To find the difference between the two distances, subtract the smaller distance from the larger one: 209.5 km−145.25 km=64.25 km209.5 \, \text{km} – 145.25 \, \text{km} = 64.25 \, \text{km}
So, the difference between the two distances is 64.25 kilometers.
Explanation:
The problem provides two distances: Owen’s distance of 145.25 kilometers and Sharon’s distance of 209.5 kilometers from Houston, Texas. The question asks for the difference between these distances, which means we need to determine how much farther Sharon is from Houston than Owen.
To do this, we simply subtract Owen’s distance from Sharon’s. Subtraction is the appropriate operation here because we want to find how much larger one value is compared to the other.
The first step is to align the decimal points for proper subtraction. In this case, both numbers have two decimal places, so it’s easy to subtract them directly. The subtraction process is as follows:
- Subtract the hundredths: 0 – 5 requires borrowing, so we take 1 from the tenths place of 9, making it 8, and the 0 in the hundredths place becomes 10. Now we subtract 10 – 5, which gives 5.
- Subtract the tenths: 8 – 2 equals 6.
- Subtract the whole numbers: 209 – 145 equals 64.
When you combine all these, you get the difference of 64.25 kilometers.
This method ensures that the subtraction is accurate and shows the magnitude of the difference between the two distances.