# How do you simplify 8/12+1/6?

$\frac{5}{6}$

#### Explanation:

We can do this in a couple of ways. The trick to this is that we need the denominators to be the same. (Remember that the denominator tells you how many pieces something is divided into - and so having 2 identical pizzas divided into 12 pieces for the one and 6 pieces into the other won't give us identically sized slices. We need to know that we are working with the same size!)

Let's do it one way - increase the 6 to a 12:

$\frac{8}{12} + \frac{1}{6}$

$\frac{8}{12} + \frac{1}{6} \left(1\right)$

$\frac{8}{12} + \frac{1}{6} \left(\frac{2}{2}\right)$

$\frac{8}{12} + \frac{2}{12}$

$\frac{10}{12}$

$\frac{2 \times 5}{2 \times 6}$

$\left(\frac{2}{2}\right) \left(\frac{5}{6}\right)$

$\left(1\right) \left(\frac{5}{6}\right)$

$\frac{5}{6}$

We could also do it the other way and reduce the denominator 12 fraction to a 6 first:

$\frac{8}{12} + \frac{1}{6}$

$\frac{2 \times 4}{2 \times 6} + \frac{1}{6}$

$\left(\frac{2}{2}\right) \left(\frac{4}{6}\right) + \frac{1}{6}$

$\left(1\right) \left(\frac{4}{6}\right) + \frac{1}{6}$

$\frac{4}{6} + \frac{1}{6}$

$\frac{5}{6}$