Mass and capacity word problems, step by step
Measuring words only stick when the number beside them is one the thing could really weigh or hold.
The question
How many grams are left?
A full parcel came in at 713 grams, and 254 grams have gone by lunchtime.
A full parcel came in at 713 grams, and 254 grams have gone by lunchtime.
numbers:713254
713 − 254
asked:How many grams are left?
713 − 254 =459
459 grams
- Read it through once. Grabbing the numbers on the first read means choosing an operation before you know the story, and that choice is the only hard part of a word problem.
- Now the numbers: 713 and 254. Finding them is not the same as knowing what to do with them — that comes next, and it comes from the story rather than from the numbers.
- Something is being taken away or compared. So this one is a subtraction: 713 − 254.
- 713 − 254 = 459 grams. And answer the question that was ASKED — "How many grams are left?" — in grams, because the sum on its own is not yet an answer.
How it works.
- 01
Read it through once. Grabbing the numbers on the first read means choosing an operation before you know the story, and that choice is the only hard part of a word problem.
- 02
Now the numbers: 713 and 254. Finding them is not the same as knowing what to do with them — that comes next, and it comes from the story rather than from the numbers.
- 03
Something is being taken away or compared. So this one is a subtraction: 713 − 254.
- 04
713 − 254 = 459 grams. And answer the question that was ASKED — "How many grams are left?" — in grams, because the sum on its own is not yet an answer.