A metal rod will be cut into pieces that are each 1/15 meters long. The rod is 3/5 meters long. How many pieces will be made from the rod? Write your answer in simplest form.

Answer 1

How many 2's are there in 8? To get that answer the operation is division (8 divided by 2 is 4). There are 4 groups of 2 in a set of 8.

How many 5's in 25? 25 / 5 = 5.

How many 1/15's are in 3/5? Same idea. 3/5 divided by 1/15 gives the answer. To divide one fraction by a 2nd, multiply the 1st fraction by the reciprocal of the divisor).

3/5 (15/1) = 9. There are 9 of those 1/15 contained in 3/5.

Another way to think about it is do convert 3/5 to 15ths. 3/5 = 9/15. The numerator tells you how many 15th's you have.