How to Find a Fraction of a Number

Fraction of a number. The problem states a hat that sells for $15.00 is on sale for 2/5 of then regular price. What is the sale price? So in this solution, we know that the regular price is $15.00. We also know that the sale price is 2/5 of the regular price, to find the sale price we need to find 2/5 of the regular price. So 2/5 of the regular price is equal to 2/5 of $15.00 or we can say 2/5 x 15, when you see of, of represents the multiplication sign. So we have two methods to solve 2/5 x 15. Let’s look at our first method. In method one, we’re going to use the following steps. The first step is we need to write the whole number as a fraction, we have 2/5 x 15, 15 is the whole number. We need to write it as fraction and a whole number can be written as a fraction with the denominator 1. So put it the 15/1, it turns that 15 into a fraction. So 15/1 is the same thing as the whole number 15 but now it’s just written in a fraction.

So now our second step is we need to multiply. And we’re going to multiply our numerator first and then we’re going to multiply our denominator. So if we take 2/5 x 15/1, first we multiply our numerator, so the numerator is the top number. We’re going to have 2 x 15 because we multiply our numerator first and then we divide that by and we multiply our denominator. So 5 x 1, we’re just going across to multiply. So then we get 2 x 15 is 30 over 5 x 1 is 5. Now we have 30/5.

Our next step, three is we need to simplify. We need to simplify 30/5 because with the fraction when you have a bigger number on top it’s an improper fraction. We have to simplify it so it’s properly written. So to simplify, we take 30 ÷ 5 which is 6. The sale price is $6.00. This is our first method for solving this problem. Our second method that we can use is using a model to solve this problem. So to find 2/5 of our original problem, 2/5 x 15, here we’re solving 2/5 x 15 using a model. We’re going to model the problem using 15 balls and I got the 15 balls from this number, 15. So 2/5 x 15 is the same thing as saying 2 x 1/5 x 15, so these equal each other. 2/5 x 15 is equal to 2 x 1/5 x 15.

To find 1/5 of 15 or 1/5 x 15, we need to divide the 15 balls into 5 equal parts. The reason why I know I need to break it up into equal groups of 5 is because 1/5 of 15, we’re taking a fifth of the 15. So this denominator the 5, the 1/5 is telling me how many groups we’re going to need 5 groups of 15. 1/5 of 15 balls is going to equal 1/5 x 15. This is going to find out—what I’m doing right now is I am going to find out how many balls will be in each group. I need 5 equal groups, so now I’m finding out how many balls would be in each group. So 1/5 of 15 is equal to, it’s the same thing as 1/5 x 15. Again we need to go ahead and solve 1/5 if 15. We need to write this whole number in a fraction, 1/5 x 15/1 and then we multiply our numerator first and then our denominator. I’m going to take my numerator 1 x 15 and divide it by the denominator 5 x 1. That will give me 15/5 and then I’m going to simplify 15 ÷ 5 is 3.

So I know that I’m going to need 3 balls. This is telling me that each group, the 5 equal groups are going to have 3 balls. So I’m going to go ahead and make my model, each group has 3 balls. I’m going to go ahead and I made 1 group of 3, another group of 3. I need a total of 5 groups of 15. If I take 2/5 x 15 and we said that equals 2 x 1/5 x 15, then we know that 1/5 x 15 is 3. So then we’re taking 2 x 3 and that would give us 6. The sale price of the hat is $6.00. So here we use a model to help us solve it and method which is solved that using the multiplication.

Things to keep in mind that when—it says 2/5 of 15, it has the same meaning as 2/5 x 15. So the word “of” equals multiply, it equals “x”, multiply. The times sign. The steps to follow to find the fraction of a whole number the first step is that you write your whole number as a fraction. Your second step is that you multiply the numerator and then the denominators. And then the last step is you simplify your problem. A whole number can be written as a fraction by adding the denominator 1. For example, to find 2/5 x 15 we write the whole number as a fraction. So we put the 15/1, so now our whole number is a fraction. Then our step two, we multiplied out numerator, 2 x 15 then we multiplied our denominator, 5 x 1 and then we got 30/5. Then our last step was to simplify, so we take 30/5, 30 ÷ 5 is 6.

Remember that 2/5 x 15 can also be calculated as twice 1/5 x 15, 2 x 1/5 x 15.