Irene R. answered • 09/17/20
BS in Mechanical Engineering and Certified math teacher for 13 years
Hi Kaeleigh,
When you multiply fractions, you can multiply the numerators and multiply the denominators. You can also divide common factors between the numerators and denominators before you multiply, if the numbers share any common factors.
For this problem, there are no common factors to divide at the start of the problem, so you only need to multiply the numerators and multiply the denominators. Also, the product (or solution) will be negative because you are multiplying a negative number by a positive number:
-1 x 5 = -5
3 7 21
You are actually determining what a third of 5/7 is here.
