Cecil the Acrobat walked $3\frac{1}{2}$ feet on his tightrope, backed up $1$ foot, then walked $6\frac{1}{2}$ feet to get to the other side.  

1. Write an expression to represent Cecil’s walk.

   Hint (a):

   Imagine making a diagram of this description. What would it look like?
   Try writing the expression yourself before checking the answer.

   Answer (a):

   $3\frac{1}{2}-1+6\frac{1}{2}$

2. How far did Cecil walk?

   Hint (b):

   Cecil's distance will be the value of the expression you just wrote, since you were describing his walk.

3. Cecil started at the beginning again and walked $6\frac{1}{2}$ feet, backed up $1$ foot, then walked $3\frac{1}{2}$ feet. How far did he walk this time? How does this compare to your answer from part (b)? Explain why these answers are the same or different in a sentence or with a drawing.

   Hint (c):

   Try writing an expression for this walk. Does it look like your expression for part (a)? Are there any differences other than the order of the numbers? Remember that order does not matter if you are only doing addition.