Fractions

Introduction and Summary

Like decimals, fractions appear a lot in everyday life. This chapter will help you understand how to talk about them, how to perform computations with them, how to express them as decimals, and how to distinguish different types of fractions.

The first section will cover the terminology used to talk about fractions--(numerator and denominator) as well as the different types of fractions (proper fractions), (improper fractions), and (mixed numbers). This terminology must be mastered in order for one to do problems involving fractions and understand future references to fractions.

The second section will first talk about how to reduce fractions to lowest terms--a process that makes fractions easier to recognize and work with. Next, the section will explain how to find the least common denominator, which is the first step toward adding or subtracting two fractions.

The third section will detail how to add and subtract fractions. The fourth section will detail how to multiply and divide fractions.

Sometimes it is necessary to switch between talking about decimals and talking about fractions. The fifth section will explain how to express decimals as fractions and how to express fractions as decimals. Here, we will also learn the difference between fractions that become terminating decimals and fractions that become repeating decimals.