News from Mathnasium of Tyrone

If you’re looking for a tutor for math, you don’t have to look far! Mathnasium’s math learning centers are located here on Earth, but today’s word problem challenge is out of this world! 

This celestial-themed question gives students the opportunity to practice elementary school math skills such as number lines, addition, subtraction, tens, hundreds, and thousands. So put your moon-walk in high gear and check out the word problem below!

Question: The Moon is 3,500 kilometers wide. The Earth is 12,700 kilometers wide. How many kilometers wider is the Earth than the Moon? 

Take your time working it out. We know you can do it! When you're ready, look below to check your solution against ours.

Solution: To solve the problem, we want to set up a vertical equation, start at the ones place, and move left. We know that 0 – 0 = 0, so we can fill in the ones and tens places and move on to the hundreds. 7 hundred minus 5 hundred is 2 hundred, and 12 thousand minus 3 thousand is 9 thousand. Altogether, that makes 9,200 km.