Study Curve

A multiplicative inverse is a fraction turned upside down... so the inverse of
1/2 is 2/1, the inverse of 6/8 is 8/6.

It is hard to explain how to multiply fractions when you are not face to face, but I will do the best I can. It is really important that you try to ask your teacher for some help so that you can really understand how to multiply fractions, maybe you could stay after school to get some help.

There is just one way to learn your multiplication tables and that is to work really, really hard to memorize them. Get some flashcards and practice them over and over and over again. Believe me learning these will be one of the best presents you can ever give yourself. It's hard, but you can do it!!!!

There are several steps you must follow to multiply fraction.

For instance:

1/2x 1/2 You multiply the top numbers and then multiply the bottom numbers.

When you multiply the top numbers it looks like this

1x1=1

When you multiply the bottom numbers it looks like this

2x2=4

And the answer is

1/4

Unfortunately isn't always this easy and you have to do something called cross canceling. Cross canceling looks like this

2/5 x 5/6

When you cross cancel you look at the number kitty corner the number to see if there is a number that you can divide both numbers by to reduce, (make one or both of the numbers smaller)

In this case you first look at the numbers 2 and the number kitty corner to it which is the 6. The biggest number that will go into both 2 and 6 is the number 2, so you will divide both the number 2 and 6 by 2. This will look like this

2 divided by 2 equals 1

6 divided by 2 equals 3

So now the original problem looks like this

1/5 x 5/3

You're not done yet though!

Now you have to look at the two numbers you have not looked at yet and that would be the two other numbers that are kitty corner to each other and cross cancel them. It just so happens that both of those numbers are the same. They are both 5.

The biggest number that you can divide both of the 5's by is the number 5. That would look like this

5 divided by 5 equals 1

5 divided by 5 equals 1

Now the original number that you are going to multiply looks like this

1/1 x 1/3

Now you do exactly the same thing that I did with 1/2 x 1/2 so it would look like this

1x1=1

1x3=3

And the answer is

1/3

The new multiplied fraction now looks like this

1/4

I hope that this helps you. If you have more questions, just post them on this site and I will try to help and so will other members. I'm proud of you for trying to figure this out, it shows you are willing to stick with it and work hard. Good for you!!!