Nathan B. answered • 08/22/18
Tutor
5
(20)
Elementary and Algebraic skilled
Fractions are essentially a version of ratios
The bottom part of the fraction determines how many parts of a whole there are. In this case, there are 140 parts i.e. beads. If all the beads were the same type we would have 140/140, which would become 1 whole piece.
If you want a simpler visualization, think of a pizza pie, and you cut it in half, but don't eat any of it. You would have
1/2 and 1/2, or 2/2, one whole pizza available. If you cut the pizzaagain into fourths, you would have 4/4 of a pizza. If two of the pieces were eaten, you would have 2/4 of a pizza left. You can simplify that by dividing the top and bottom by a common number, in this case, 2. that shows that you have 1/2 of a pizza left.
1/2 and 1/2, or 2/2, one whole pizza available. If you cut the pizzaagain into fourths, you would have 4/4 of a pizza. If two of the pieces were eaten, you would have 2/4 of a pizza left. You can simplify that by dividing the top and bottom by a common number, in this case, 2. that shows that you have 1/2 of a pizza left.
In the problem above, only part of the collective whole is black beads, 80 of them. So out of the 140 beads, 80 of them are black:
80/140 of the beads are black.
Simplifying a fraction is just reducing it down to the most basic ratio. Let's start off simple. Both the numerator and denominator have a 0 in their ones column. This means both numbers are divisible by 10, so let's do so:
80 ÷ 10 = 8
140 ÷ 10 = 14
So our new fraction looks like 8/14. Do you notice something else about the two numbers that have something in common? They're both even, so that means that they're also divisible by 2:
8 ÷ 2 = 4
14 ÷ 2 = 7
Now our fraction looks like 4/7. I don't see anything else that can be factored out, so that's the simplest form the fraction could be. So this means that out of all the beads Chanelle has, 4/7 of them are black.
I hope this helps walk you through the process of simplifying fractions.
