Word problems are challenging for students to solve. The difficulty lies in that word problems relate to many math concepts and mathematical relationships. The main hurdle is to translate the word problem into its mathematical equations.
Often students make mistakes because they apply the wrong calculation rules or incorrectly interpret the problem and, therefore, perform the wrong calculation.
Below we have outlined 10 common mistakes students make, and how to solve the word problems correctly.
Different units
5 kg worth of sand is packed into bags of 100g. How many sandbags are there?
Segmenting
Diego takes 8 minutes to cut a block of wood into 5 pieces. How long will he take to cut it into 10 pieces?
Intervals
Cars in a parking lot were placed at equal intervals apart. If the first and the 15th car were 42 m apart, how far apart were the first and the 10th cars?
Groups of Items
3 jugs of milk were sold for $20. How much do 18 milk jugs cost?
Fraction of Total
Vik spends 1⁄3 of his money on stickers and 1⁄5 of his money on candy. What fraction of his money does he have left?
Fraction of Remainder
Spencer spends 1⁄3 of his money on a new game and 1⁄5 of the remaining money on a bag of chips. What fraction of his money does he have left?
Fraction of
Express $2 as a fraction of 80 cents.
Fraction with Units
May had 8⁄9 m of string. She used 1⁄2 m of it as lace for her shoes. How much string does she have left?
Rest of Fraction
2⁄5 of the ice cream is chocolate flavor, the rest is vanilla flavor.
Remainder with Fraction
There was 8⁄9 of an apple pie left on the counter. John and his sister ate 1⁄3 of the pie each. What fraction of the apple pie was left?
Word problems worksheets
We have created hundreds of word problem worksheets for every grade, kindergarten to grade 5, in our math worksheets section.
