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    Why do you have to do those little fractions/ calculations first?

    Module 1 Day 2 Challenge Part 1
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    • debbieD
      debbie ADMIN M0★ M1 M5
      last edited by debbie

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      • debbieD
        debbie ADMIN M0★ M1 M5
        last edited by debbie

        [Originally posted in Discussions]

        Module 1 Week 1 Day 2 Challenge Explanation Part 1

        So I ask a lot of questions. But anyways why do you have to do those little fractions/ calculations first? Why not, say, do something else?

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        • debbieD
          debbie ADMIN M0★ M1 M5
          last edited by

          That's a good question. You do need to do the little fraction inside the big fraction first. This gets into the meaning of what a fraction or a divide is (and it answers your other question, posted under "Also.").

          One way to think of fractions (or divides) is as switched-around multiplication problems. So in \(\frac{2}{3},\) the "2" means something altogether that you are sharing, and "3" means the number of groups you are sharing them into. For example,

          $$\frac{2 \text{ cookies}}{3 \text{ people}} $$.

          The answer to this fraction means how much cookie each person gets. As a multiplication problem, this would be:

          56099215-1875-4ab6-baa2-baacf8f2b054-image.png

          And you could represent it as a picture of groups, like this:

          3e261b13-fc3b-4fe0-9b1b-c0171daa04de-image.png

          What if you divide by a fraction, like

          dcd13970-d10e-406f-9690-a99abb4a21e8-image.png

          Compare this with

          b462be17-db96-4474-8d79-c727d658be8e-image.png

          There are half as many people, so each person should get more. How much more? They should get twice as much. This is why

          c793a44c-da5f-4bfb-b6d1-dfe2f6cb9690-image.png

          This works no matter if the numerator (top number) of the fraction is 1 or any other number.

          This also explains why we have to do the little fraction first; we have to know how many people we are sharing the cookies with before we can begin to figure out how many cookies each person gets.

          I hope this helps! Let me know if you have any more questions.

          Happy Learning!

          The Daily Challenge Team

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