Word problems on subtraction

Example 1

The government warehouse contains 9,581,867 bags of maize. If 7,560,656 bags of maize were distributed to needy citizens, how many bags of maize remained?

Solution

• Total number of bags in the warehouse = 9,581,867
• Number of bags distributed = 7,560,656

In this example, you can subtract vertically or horizontally to get the number of maize bags that remained in the warehouse. However, subtracting vertically is simpler. That is:

  9,581,867
- 7,560,656
  2,021,211

Therefore, 2,021,211 bags of maize remained in the warehouse.

Example 2

A certain region has 15,939,500 cattle. If another region has 8,604,563 cattle, find the difference between the number of cattle in the regions.

Solution

• The number of cattle in the first region = 15,939,500
• The number of cattle in the second region = 8,604,563

Subtract the numbers of cattle in the second region from the number of cattle in the first region:

  15,939,500
-  8,604,563
   7,334,937

Therefore, the difference between the number of cattle in both regions is 7,334,937.