This is the easiest method we know to add or subtract fractions!
What is a Denominator?
The denominator is the bottom number in a fraction.
It shows how many equal parts the item is divided into.
What is a Common Denominator?
"Common" Denominator is when the denominators
Why is it Important?
Adding and Subtracting Fractions
Making The Denominators the Same
When the denominators are not the same, we can either use the Least Common Denominator method to make them the same, or we can:
Multiply top and bottom of each fraction by the denominator of the other.
Like in this example (press play button):
This always works, but we often need to simplify the fraction afterwards, as in this example (press play button):
We simplified the fraction 20/32 to 10/16, then to 5/8 by dividing the top and bottom by 2 each time, and that is as simple as it can get!
What Did We Do?
1. We multiplied each fraction by the denominator of the other. Let's use letters instead of numbers to show it:
2. And because they now have the same denominator, we can add them:
In One Step!
We could do those two things in one step like this:
Which we can use like this:
Example: What is 2/3 + 4/5 ?
|2||+||4||=||2×5 + 3×4||=||10 + 12||=||22|
|3||5||3 × 5||15||15|
(Note: "a" was 2, "b" was 3, "c" was 4 and "d" was 5.)
That is how the experts do it!