Subtraction of Fractions: In combination with other operations

Let's try to find the lowest common denominator between 3, 15, and 5

To find the lowest common denominator, we need to find a number that is divisible by 3, 15, and 5

In this case, the common denominator is 15

Now we'll multiply each fraction by the appropriate number to reach the denominator 15

We'll multiply the first fraction by 5

We'll multiply the second fraction by 1

We'll multiply the third fraction by 3

$\frac{1\times5}{3\times5}+\frac{7\times1}{15\times1}-\frac{2\times3}{5\times3}=\frac{5}{15}+\frac{7}{15}-\frac{6}{15}$

Now we'll add and then subtract:

$\frac{5+7-6}{15}=\frac{12-6}{15}=\frac{6}{15}$

We'll divide both numerator and denominator by 3 and get:

$\frac{6:3}{15:3}=\frac{2}{5}$

According to the order of operations rules, we will first address the expression in parentheses.

The common denominator between the fractions is 4, so we will multiply each numerator by the number needed for its denominator to reach 4.

We will multiply the first fraction's numerator by 2 and the second fraction's numerator by 1:

$(\frac{9}{2}-\frac{3}{4})=\frac{2\times9-1\times3}{4}=\frac{18-3}{4}=\frac{15}{4}$

Now we have the expression:

$\frac{1}{3}\times\frac{15}{4}=$

Note that we can reduce 15 and 3:

$\frac{1}{1}\times\frac{5}{4}=$

Now we multiply numerator by numerator and denominator by denominator:

$\frac{1\times5}{1\times4}=\frac{5}{4}=1\frac{1}{4}$

Let's simplify this expression while following the order of operations which states that exponents come before multiplication and division, which come before addition and subtraction, and that parentheses come before all of these,

Therefore, we'll start by simplifying the expressions in parentheses first:
$(\frac{1}{4}+\frac{7}{4}-\frac{5}{4}-\frac{1}{4})\cdot10:7:5=\\ \frac{1+7-5-1}{4}\cdot10:7:5 =\\ \frac{2}{4}\cdot10:7:5 = \\ \frac{1}{2}\cdot10:7:5$

We calculated the expression inside the parentheses by adding the fractions, which we did by creating one fraction using the common denominator (4) which in this case is the denominator in all fractions, so we only added/subtracted the numerators (according to the fraction sign), then we reduced the resulting fraction,

We'll continue and note that between multiplication and division operations there is no defined precedence for either operation, therefore we'll calculate the result of the expression obtained in the last step step by step from left to right (which is the regular order in arithmetic operations), meaning we'll first perform the multiplication operation, which is the first from the left, and then we'll perform the division operation that comes after it, and so on:

$\frac{1}{2}\cdot10:7:5 =\\ \frac{1\cdot10}{2}:7:5 =\\ \frac{10}{2}:7:5 =\\ 5:7:5 =\\ \frac{5}{7}:5$

In the first step, we performed the multiplication of the fraction by the whole number, remembering that multiplying by a fraction means multiplying by the fraction's numerator, then we simplified the resulting fraction and reduced it (effectively performing the division operation that results from it), in the final step we wrote the division operation as a simple fraction, since this division operation yields a non-whole result,

We'll continue and to perform the final division operation, we'll remember that dividing by a number is the same as multiplying by its reciprocal, and therefore we'll replace the division operation with multiplication by the reciprocal:

$\frac{5}{7}:5 =\\ \frac{5}{7}\cdot\frac{1}{5}$

In this case we preferred to multiply by the reciprocal because the divisor in the expression is a fraction and it's more convenient to perform multiplication between fractions,

We will then perform the multiplication between the fractions we got in the last step, while remembering that multiplication between fractions is performed by multiplying numerator by numerator and denominator by denominator while maintaining the fraction line, then we'll simplify the resulting expression by reducing it:

$\frac{5}{7}\cdot\frac{1}{5} =\\ \frac{5\cdot1}{7\cdot5}=\\ \frac{5}{35}=\\ \frac{1}{7}$

Let's summarize the solution steps, we got that:

$(\frac{1}{4}+\frac{7}{4}-\frac{5}{4}-\frac{1}{4})\cdot10:7:5=\\ \frac{1+7-5-1}{4}\cdot10:7:5 =\\ \frac{1}{2}\cdot10:7:5 =\\ 5:7:5 =\\ \frac{5}{7}\cdot\frac{1}{5} =\\ \frac{1}{7}$

Therefore the correct answer is answer B.

According to the order of operations, we will first solve the expression in parentheses.

Note that since the denominators are not common, we will look for a number that is both divisible by 2 and 3. That is 6.

We will multiply one-third by 2 and one-half by 3, now we will get the expression:

$\frac{1}{4}\times(\frac{2+3}{6})=$

Let's solve the numerator of the fraction:

$\frac{1}{4}\times\frac{5}{6}=$

We will combine the fractions into a multiplication expression:

$\frac{1\times5}{4\times6}=\frac{5}{24}$

Let's try to find the lowest common denominator between 3, 15, and 5

To find the lowest common denominator, we need to find a number that is divisible by 3, 15, and 5

In this case, the common denominator is 15

Now we'll multiply each fraction by the appropriate number to reach the denominator 15

We'll multiply the first fraction by 5

We'll multiply the second fraction by 1

We'll multiply the third fraction by 3

$\frac{2\times5}{3\times5}+\frac{2\times1}{15\times1}-\frac{4\times3}{5\times3}=\frac{10}{15}+\frac{2}{15}-\frac{12}{15}$

Now we'll add and then subtract:

$\frac{10+2-12}{15}=\frac{12-12}{15}=\frac{0}{15}$

We'll divide both the numerator and denominator by 0 and get:

$\frac{0}{15}=0$