Good knowledge of multiplying Fractions!

Before you start this lesson on multiplying fractions, I recommend that you become familiar with multiplication table

Multiplying fractions is very easy. However, I would like to introduce the topic with a challenging example.

Say that you bought a medium pizza and your pizza has 8 slices.If someone eat half of your pizza,or 4 slices, you are left with 4/8 or 1/2.

If you decide that you are only going to eat 1 slice out of the 4 slices remaining, you are eating one 1/4 of the leftover. Remember that the leftover is 1/2.

You can also argue that you only ate 1 slice out of 8 slices or 1/8.

Thus, we can see that eating 1/4 of 1/2 is the same as eating 1/8

Another way to get 1/8 is to perform the following multiplication:

1/4 times 1/2 = 1/8 because 1 times 1 is 1 and 4 times 2 is 8

This is an interesting result,but all you need to remember is the following:

When you multiply fractions, multiply the numerators together and then multiply the denominators together.

More examples

3/5 times 4/7 = 12/35

sometimes, it is a good idea to simplify the fractions before multiplying.

Take a look at the following example:

10/20 times 3/15

Since 10/20 can be simplified as 1/2 and 3/15 can be simplified as 1/5, you will be better off multiplying 1/2 by 1/5. This way, it is easier to do the multiplication to get 1/10.

Multiplying mixed numbers:

If you don't remember what a mixed number is or how to change a mixed number to improper fractions, it is a good time to review improper fractions

Before, you can actually multiply mixed numbers, it is imperative that you change them to improper fractions.

Example: 3 1/2 times 2 2/5 = 7/2 times 12/5 = 84/10

Use the following calculator to practice