Hello, my name is Kiley, and welcome to Problem Solving Strategy 10: Simplify the Problem.
Sometimes a word problem includes a lot of information.
In this video, you'll learn to take a multiple step problem and solve it by breaking down into smaller steps.
Let's look at a word problem.
"Steven's mother gave him $20 to go to the store.
He bought 3 loaves of bread, and 3 cartons of milk.
The bread cost $2 each, and the milk cost $3 for each carton.
How much money did Steven receive in change?"
We know that this problem has many steps to solving it because there is a lot of information in it.
The question asks, "How much money did Steven receive in change?"
So we know we'll need to subtract because receiving change means there was a larger amount to begin with.
But, before we do that, we need to know how much the food cost.
Let's solve this problem by breaking it up into smaller steps.
Steven bought 3 loaves of bread at $2 each.
And the key word each tells us to multiply.
3 x $2 =
$6.
That means he paid $6 for bread.
We also know that he bought 3 cartons of milk at $3 each.
And again, we have the same key word.
So, what do we do?
We multiply.
3 x $3 =
$9
That means he paid $9 for milk.
In order to find out how much change he received, we need to know how much his groceries cost altogether.
And what does that word, "altogether," tell us to do?
Add. That's right.
When Steven went to the cash register to pay for his items, they totaled $15,
because $6 for bread plus $9 for milk equals...
$15. You got it.
Great.
We broke this multi step problem into smaller steps.
But, we still have one more step.
Remember that the question asks, how much money Steven received in change.
Hmm...
Well, since his mother gave him $20, we need to subtract the total purchase from $20.
That's right, so $20 - $15 = $5.
Steven received $5 in change.
I bet you thought you couldn't solve this problem when you first saw it
because it seemed so confusing with all the numbers.
But, when you think about a math word problem by breaking it down into smaller steps,
you will find that if will make since to you and you can solve it very easily.
You have learned that even the most complicated math problems can be solved
if you just take your time and look at it one step at a time.
When you simplify a problem, you simplify finding the solution.
You can keep solving math word problems on our fun online games and quizzes.
And remember to always be clever.