Simplify 10/80

Question

Write yes or no to tell whether the fraction can be simplified if your answe is yes, then simplify.

Answer 1

Yes you can simplify! You just had to find what the greatest common factor for 10 and 80. This means the greatest number that you can divide both 10 and 80 by, and in this case it is 10. Remember, that when you simplify you are dividing by 1 (because 10/10 = 1), so you are not actually changing the value. SUPER IMPORTANT to remember. 

10 / 10 = 1

80 / 10 = 8

Answer 2

Once you determine there is a Greatest Common Factor for 10 and 80, then yes, you can simplify this fraction.  You may want to list all the factors of each number first:  

10:  1X10, 2X5, 5X2, 10X1

80:  1X80, 2X40, 4X20, 5X16, 8X10, 10X8, 16X5, 20X4, 40X2, 80X1

Comparing the factors for each number, you can see that the "greatest" number they both can be evenly divided by is 10.  Now you can divide the numerator by 10 and the denominator by 10 to get the reduced fraction 1/8 which is it's simplest form.

Answer 3

10/80=1/8

10/10=1

80/10=8

In this case both of the numerator (10) and the denominator (80) have a Greatest Common Factor of 10.  You can divide both numbers by 10 because what ever you do to the denominator you must also do to the numerator.  When you divide 10 by 10 you get 1 as your numerator.  When you divide 80 by 10 you get 8 as your numerator so your final answer is 1/8. I also trained my students that when your numerator and denominator both end in 0, you can simply take off the 0 to get the number in simpler form.