How do you find the quotient of 5/16 divided by 3/2?
1 Answer
- Set the expression up as a complex fraciton
- Extend the fraction to equal denominators
- Solve like an usual fraction
Explanation:
First of all, let's look at the parts of our fraction. The main numerator consists of a bi-numerator = 5, and a bi-denomiator = 16.
The main denominator consists of a bi-numerator and bi-denominator as well (3 and 2).
To work with complex fractions like this, we want to have the same bi-denominator in both parts of the fraction.
What we have is:
The smallest common bi-denomiator is 16, so let's expand the main denomiator by 8:
Since the bi-denomiators are the same, we can just cross them out. If this doesn't make any sense, have a look at this:
NOTE: the expression above has nothing to do with the original expression, I'm just explaining why we can cross out the bi-denominators.
After we have crossed out the common bi-denominators, we are left with