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Fractions and Decimals > A Fraction

A Fraction

Let us recapitulate the discussion.

A fraction means a part of a group or of a region.

512 is a fraction. We read it as “”.

What does “12” stand for?

It is the number of equal parts into which the whole has been .

What does “5” stand for?

It is the number of equal parts which have been taken out.

Here 5 is called the and 12 is called the .

Say, what will be the numerator of the fraction 37 ?

And what will be the denominator of the fraction 415?

Find the Fractions representing the shaded colours.

Instruction

Choose the correct answer to colour the part according to the given fraction.

The shaded fraction is equal to:

Anagha, Ravi, Reshma and John shared their tiffin. Along with their food, they had also, brought 5 apples. After eating the other food, the four friends wanted to eat apples.

Split the 5th apple and distribute to four of them.

Ravi
Reshma
Anagha
John

How can they share five apples among four of them?

Anagha said, ‘Let each of us have full apple and a of the fifth apple.’

Reshma said, ‘That is fine, but we can also divide each of the five apples into the 4 equal parts and take one-quarter from each apple’

Ravi said, ‘In both the ways of sharing, each of us would get the same share, i.e., 5 quarters. Since 4 quarters make one whole, we can also say that each of us would get 1 whole and one quarter. The value of each share would be five divided by four.

Is it written as 5÷4?

John said, ‘ the same as 54’.

Reshma added that in 54, the numerator is bigger than the denominator. The fractions, where the numerator is bigger than the denominator are called improper fractions.

Thus, fractions like 32,127,185 are all fractions.

Given the sample examples below try to draw the improper fractions like 52, 61,73

1. Write five improper fractions with denominator 7. , , , ,

2. Write five improper fractions with numerator 11. , , , ,

Ravi reminded John, ‘What is the other way of writing the share? Does it follow from Anagha’s way of dividing 5 apples?’

John nodded, ‘Yes, It indeed follows from Anagha’s way. In her way, each share is one whole and one quarter. It is 1 + 14 and written in short as 1 + 14.

Remember, 1 + 14 is the same as .

Recall the apples eaten by Farida. She got 2 x 12 poories ( depicted in the below figure).

How many shaded halves are there in 2 x 12?

There are shaded halves.

So, the fraction can also be written as 52. Thus, 2 x 12 is the same as 52.

Fractions such as 1 x 14 and 2 x 12 are called Mixed Fractions. A mixed fraction has a combination of a whole and a part. It is another way of representing fractions.

The value of improper fractions is greater than one. For example, 73 represents 7 thirds.

This consists of 2 complete wholes and one-third, i.e., 2 + 13

which we write as 2 13. This is called a fraction.

Now, let's learn how to convert imporper to mixed farction and vice-versa.

Express the following as mixed fractions.

(i)174

174

  • Finding the nearest multiple of the denominator(4) to the numerator(17) i.e.
  • Rewriting the numerator as a sum: 17 = 16 +
  • Splitting the given fraction into two separate fractions
  • Simplifying the possible terms
  • Removing the addition sign, we get the desired mixed fraction.
  • We have the desired answer.

(ii)113

113

  • Finding the nearest multiple of the denominator(3) to the numerator(11) i.e.
  • Rewriting the numerator as a sum: 11 = 9 +
  • Splitting the given fraction into two separate fractions
  • Simplifying the possible terms
  • Removing the addition sign, we get the desired mixed fraction.
  • We found the answer.

(iii)275

275

  • Finding the nearest multiple of the denominator(5) to the numerator(27) i.e.
  • Rewriting the numerator as a sum: 27 = 25 +
  • splitting the given fraction into two separate fractions
  • simplifying the possible terms
  • Removing the addition sign, we get the desired mixed fraction.
  • We found the answer.

(iv)73

73

  • Finding the nearest multiple of the denominator(3) to the numerator(7) i.e.
  • Rewriting the numerator as a sum: 7 = 6 +
  • Splitting the given fraction into two separate fractions
  • Simplifying the possible terms
  • Removing the addition sign, we get the desired mixed fraction.
  • We found the answer.

Thus, we can express an improper fraction as a mixed fraction by dividing the numerator by denominator to obtain the quotient and the remainder.

Then the mixed fraction will be written as Quotient = RemainderDivisor.

Express the following mixed fractions as improper fractions.

234

  • Insert the addition sign in between the whole number(2) and fraction(3/4).
  • We can rewrite the whole number by writing it as a fraction
  • Taking the LCM of the two denominators and re-writing the whole number
  • Evaluating the first term is
  • Writing the numerator as a sum
  • Adding the values are
  • Therefore the fraction is

Instruction

(b) 719
719 = 7×9+19 =
(c) 537
537 = 5×7+37 =

Thus we can express a mixed fraction as an improper fraction as

(Whole x Denominator) + NumeratorDenominator