Part-Part-Whole

For each type of Part-Part-Whole problem, I’ve created a slide deck with 10 ready-to-customize Numberless Word Problems. If you want to edit the slides, all you have to do is download or make a copy of the slide deck.

More about Part-Part-Whole problems

This problem type involves situations where there is a quantity composed of two or more other quantities. Unlike in Joining and Separating problems, there is no direct or implied action in this problem type.

Part-Part-Whole problems contain the following elements:

• Two or more parts
• A total, called the whole

While combining parts to make a whole, or total, is often associated with the operation of addition, addition is not necessarily the operation needed to solve a Part-Part-Whole problem. If one or more of the parts is unknown, for example, then addition OR subtraction may be successfully used to represent the situation and/or determine the unknown quantity.