How to add, subtract, multiply, divide fractions

Simon

12 years ago

How to add, subtract, multiply, divide fractions is an important foundational skill.

Learn these, practice them and always keep to the same methods!

There are 6 main numeracy skills that will help with your maths. Click here to read more.

Click here to visit subtraction skills, multiplication skills, divisions skills videos.

Fraction manipulation represents around 1/3rd (yes, really!) of a typical GCSE paper. Questions such as:

1/3 + 7/8 = ?
percentages
ratio
division
comparisons
gradient
equations
algebra
probability
and so on ..

… all will use fractions in some form.

The study of fractions is one of the most important parts of foundational maths study. Fractions can be a little easier to ‘visualise’ when you are calculating. Try to develop a ‘reasonableness check’ while you are working through the calculations. For instance:

A quarter of 63456 is around 15,000

because it’s nearly 60,000.
and
a quarter is half of a half*

try to ‘see’ a half of a half as a quarter, like this:

the quarter is half of the half

It gets a little trickier with some advanced fractions. Perhaps using ‘nearly equivalents’ would be helpful… such as 9/16 is around a half, or, 3/14 is a little less than a quarter.

Try some of the videos. Maybe you could stop halfway and try to guess the answer.

Equivalent fractions