What is a fraction of 42 is 7
The Correct Answer and Explanation is:
Question: What fraction of 42 is 7?
Answer: 742=16\frac{7}{42} = \frac{1}{6}
So, 7 is 16\frac{1}{6} of 42.
Explanation
When the question asks, “What fraction of 42 is 7?” it is asking us to express the number 7 as a fraction of the number 42. In other words, we want to find a fraction ab\frac{a}{b} such that when multiplied by 42, it equals 7.
Mathematically, this means: fraction×42=7\text{fraction} \times 42 = 7
To find the fraction, we divide both sides of the equation by 42: fraction=742\text{fraction} = \frac{7}{42}
Now we simplify the fraction 742\frac{7}{42}. Both the numerator (7) and the denominator (42) have a common factor of 7: 742=7÷742÷7=16\frac{7}{42} = \frac{7 \div 7}{42 \div 7} = \frac{1}{6}
This means 7 is one-sixth of 42.
Conceptually, a fraction represents a part of a whole. The denominator (bottom number) tells us into how many equal parts the whole is divided, and the numerator (top number) tells us how many of those parts we are considering.
Here:
- The whole is 42.
- We want to find what part 7 represents out of 42.
- Since 42÷6=742 \div 6 = 7, the whole 42 can be divided into 6 equal parts of 7 each.
- Therefore, 7 represents one of those six equal parts, or 16\frac{1}{6} of 42.
Understanding fractions as parts of a whole is fundamental in math and helps in many areas such as proportions, ratios, percentages, and even real-world problems like dividing resources or measuring quantities. This particular problem demonstrates a simple but important skill: finding what fraction one number is of another by dividing the smaller number by the larger number and simplifying the result.
