help, forget the old school can you young people help me.?

Question

my nephew asked me to explain how to reduce fractions to the lowest terms, can some one explain it to me first. i compeletely forgot i must be setting in with early alzheimers. my mind is blown unless some one refreshes me . from a shamed thanks........

Answer 1

I am old school but to try and help here you go.

When a given number will not go into both parts of the fraction it has been reduced such as 14/16 can be divided by 2 to = 7/8 but can go no lower. 32/16 can be divided by 8 to = 4/2 or 2.

Hope this helps ;)

Answer 2

It's easy, especially if you remember that whatever you do to the top, you must also do to the bottom. Do you remember that 3 over 3, or three thirds, means the same thing as the whole number one? If you break a candy bar into three pieces, and then eat all three pieces, you have eaten one candy bar. Savvy? Anyway, when you do the same thing to the top as you do to the bottom, you are effectively dividing by one, or not really changing the fraction, just making it simpler.

Ok, so here's what you do. You look at the top number (numerator) and the bottom number (denominator) and notice if any number will divide evenly into both of them. When you find one, divide it out. Then repeat until no more numbers will divide evenly into both the top and the bottom.

For example: Let's look at the fraction 12/60 (twelve sixtieths or twelve over sixty). What number goes evenly into both 12 and 60? Well, right away we notice that they are both even numbers, so 2 must divide evenly into them both. Let's do that. 12 divided by 2 is 6, and 60 divided by 2 is 30. That leaves us with 6/30.

Now, 6/30 is also evenly divisible on top and bottom by 2. So, let's do it again. 6 divided by 2 is 3, and 30 divided by 2 is 15. Now we have 3 over 15, or 3/15. Ok?

3/15 is not divisible on top and bottom by 2. So, now what? We rack our brains, and come up with 3. Let's try that. 3 divided by 3 is 1, and 15 divided by 3 is 5. That leaves us with 1/5. Now our fraction is completely reduced.

Incidentally, dividing by 2 twice and then by 3 once is like dividing by 2 times 2 times 3, or dividing by 12. If we had taken the original fraction (12/60) and divided the top and bottom by 12, we would have ended up with the same reduced fraction: 1/5.

Bon chance! And, I hope that helped.

Answer 3

find a common number that divides into both the top and bottom of the fraction until you can't divide anymore, that is a reduced fraction ex. 9/15, 9 and 15 shares the prime number 3, so divide 9/15 by 3 and you get 3/5, which is the same fraction, only in it's lowest form.....I think......

Answer 4

That's simple- reducing a fraction to its lowest term is like taking the fraction 2/4 and making it 1/2. That's it.

Hope that helps!

Answer 5

you just need to find the common factor of both nominator and denominator except 1 (of course). Like 2/4, they both can be divided by 2. so, the lowest term would be 1/2.

Answer 6

8/16 = 4/8 = 2/4 = 1/2
12/30 = 6/15 = 2/5

Find numbers that go into the top and bottom.

Answer 7

factor out the numerator and denominator, then cancel the common factors of the two. After you have cancelled all the factors that you can, remultiply the remaining factors for the fraction in simplest terms.

Answer 8

think of number that can be divided from the numerator and denominator (except 1).

there can be more than one. Once it reached the point that there no more common multiple, that is the lower term.

Answer 9

75/100 reduces to 3/4

Hope that jogs your memory.

Answer 10

thats like so 5th grade dude. get a clue.