Hey, yo, all. How’s the GED math goin’ on? Last time, I talked about problems with percent increase, and now let’s look at percent decrease. It be all about knowin’ what the question’s really askin’. Remember, I said, when it asks what’s the percent increase, what it means is:

What Percent OF the Original amount IS the Difference between the two amounts?

P × O = D

Percent decrease is pretty much the same thing. What percent of the original amount is the difference between the two amounts? Only difference in figuring it out is that the second amount is lower than the first, not higer. No sweat. The percent times the original amount still equals the difference. It’s just a decrease, not an increase. Get it?

Let’s look at it. Here’s a practice problem.

I filled up my car, so it had 15 gallons of gas in the tank. So, I drove out to my uncle’s house and back, and it took $18 in gas at $2 per gallon to fill up the tank. What was the percentage decrease in gas during the trip?

Did I get you with a tough one? More than jus’ one step here. Try to figure it out, then I’ll walk you through it…
continue reading "GED Math: Percentage Decrease"

Percents! Yo, I know most everyone out there hates percents. I got a kinda question lots of people say’s confusin’. That’s when it’s askin’ about percent increase. This one’s in lotsa word problems. An’ I know how you love word problems! How ’bout we try one out?

I got a new hard drive, to back up my computer. The old hard drive I was usin’ was 250 GB. Now, the new one’s 640 GB. Sweet! So, what’s the percent increase in hard drive space from the old hard drive to the new one?

Give it a minute, try to work it out. What’dya think?
continue reading "GED Math: Percent Increase"

Yo, one thing I know, math is part of life. Y’all pay yo’ bills every month, right? Gotta balance income and outgo? Math, right? Not jus’ that, but thinkin’ about what you wanna do after you get yo’ GED? Best payin’ jobs, all about math. Construction, design, computers, fightin’ fires, all of ‘em use math one way or another. Not to mention trackin’ all yo’ favorite sports teams. I got dat down. Found this article, ’bout eighth graders learnin’ all about how math leads on to better careers… somethin’ we all could learn: Math Is Everywhere
continue reading "What Can GED Math Do for You?"

Yo, all you GED-studiers. Workin’ hard? Hammond wrote in with a practice question… good one for thinkin’ through distance an’ speed problems. So, I thought I’d put it in a post, not jus’ comments…. Here goes:

Two cyclists start biking from a trail’s start 3 hours apart. The second cyclist travels at 10 miles per hur ans start 3 hours after the first cyclist who is traveing at 6 miles per hour. How much time will pass before the second cyclist catches up with the first from the time the second cyclist started biking

Okay. bicyclists. start 3 hours apart. You want to know when they meet, so you want to know when the distance is the same.
continue reading "GED Practice Problem: Distance, Rate, an’ Time!"

Hey all. Zaher wrote in with this practice problem while back, and I thought it’d make a good post, so here it is:

A room is 24 feet long, 18 feet wide, and 9 feet high. How many square yards of wallpaper are needed to paper the four walls of the room?

You got your basic area problem, right? How do I know it’s “area”? Well, area is the space on the surface of something. Like, how much carpet covers a floor, or how many tiles on a bathroom wall. Or paint on a room. If you’re covering a surface, you’re talkin’ area. Now, how to solve it?
continue reading "GED Practice Word Problem"

Yo, guyz an’ gals. Connie wrote in askin’ for advice about word problems:

I’m not bad in math except when it comes to word problems any advice?

Hey, the GED’s real big on word problems, so you gotta get the hang of them. Why’d they gotta have word problems? Cuz they ain’t so much int’rested if you can figure out 3x + 4 = 12 as if you can figure out how much you’ll save each month if you buy generic soda instead of regular soda. See what I mean? One’s a plain math problem, the other’s a word problem. You’ve gotta first figure out what math you need to use it! See, my math teacher told me, math’s like a tool box. You got all these different math tools, and they help you do different things. You gotta know when to use what tool, to solve the problem you got in front of you. So, a math word problem is like a real-life problem that you might use math to solve. Okay, okay, whatcha really wanna know is, how to solve ‘em?
continue reading "GED Math Word Problem Advice"

Yo, all. Here’s another word problem from Zaher…

Satix is at a flea market. She wants to get the most knives at the lowest price. But she also wants to get at least one of each. The prices of the knives are: $ 4.30, $12.80, $11.50, $7.30, $ 7.50. If she has $50 to spend how much will her change be?

This is a tough word problem, so you gotta think it through. Hey, it’s great practice. Cuz if you can think through this, thinkin’ through some other word problems’ll be E-Z. This is what I call a number sense problem, cuz there ain’t no real advanced math, just makin’ sense of it, bein’ logical about it, and doin’ some basic math.
continue reading "GED Math: Word Problem"

Hey, yo, all, probability is the sweetest part of math. Tells you how likely something is to happen. And here’s a probability question from Zaher:

If Rob flips 3 coins what is the chance that they will come up all tails?

The correct answer was : 1/8 , but it doesn’t make sense to me ! can you explain why it is 1/8 ?

First things first. To find the probability of ONE thing happening, you’ve got to figure out how many times the thing you’re asking about will happen, and put that over how many times anything will happen. Flipping a coin is pretty easy. It could come up heads, or it could come up tails. There are two possibilities, and one chance that it’ll come up tails one out of two.

Probability of tails on one coin flip = 1/2

That’s the total number of possibilities it’ll come up tails over the total number of possibilities, altogether. Got it?

Now, you’ve got to figure out, separately, the probability that it’ll come up tails EACH of the three times. That’s simple. They’re all the same. The chance is 1/2 that it’ll come up tails each time you flip the coin. So you got three 1-in-2 chances.

First try: 1/2

Second try: 1/2

Third try: 1/2

How do you figure out what the odds are of it coming up tails all three times? Multiply! Remember, to multiply fractions, multiply all the top numbers to get the top number and multiply all the bottom numbers to get the bottom number:

1/2 × 1/2 × 1/2 = 1/8

There’s 1/8 chance of it coming up tails three times in a row.

For more information about the GED test and GED test preparation, visit the GED Academy at http://www.passGED.com

Here’s a problem that Lyndia sent in, since she was havin’ trouble with it:

3x = 7 – 4x

You wanna figure out what “x” is equal to The problem comes in when you have a number befo’ the x, and need to get all the “x”es on the same side. Think of it this way… you don’t just got one x, you got four x’s. So, you gotta move all 4 x’s to the other side. In other words, think of “4x” as all going together.
continue reading "GED Math: Algebra"

Hey, all. I know fractions is a big problem for the GED. Here’s another problem: word problems! The GED is full of ‘em. That’s cuz the GED wants to know if you can solve problems you might run across in life. I know word problems don’t always seem like real life, but they’re tryin’ to reflect everyday problems, you know. Stuff that might happen to you.
continue reading "GED Math: More Fractions… in Real Life Problems."