INSTRUCTIONS

The following picture was made from Multiply Fractions:

The parts of a multiplication example are the first factor, the second factor, and the product.

You will notice from the picture that there are 3 rows of circles, each row containing 3 2/3 circles. When the program starts, you will be asked to identify the first factor. The first factor is the number of circles in each row, or 3 2/3.

You will then be asked to identify the second factor. The second factor is the number of rows, or 3. The second factor in this program will always be 1, 2, 3, or 4. The program will not continue unless each factor is correctly identified. You will then be asked to identify the product.

You can see from the picture that there are 9 complete circles. The three partial circles can be combined to form 2 more complete circles for a total of 11 circles. The product, then, is 11.

A blue rectangle will surround all the circles when the product is entered correctly.

To calculate the product,  first write each factor in fraction form as shown in the example below. Then multiply the numerators of each factor for the numerator of the product and the denominators of each factor for the denominator of the product. You may enter the product in fraction form or whole or mixed number form, so 33/3 or 11 are both acceptable.

Written out, the example would look like this:

Since the second factor in each example of MULTIPLY FRACTIONS is a whole number,  you may use another method to calculate the product as shown in the example below. Multiply the whole number part of 3 2/3 by the second factor 3 and then the fraction part of 3 2/3 by the second factor 3. Then add the two numbers for the product.

Written out, the example would look like this:

As you can see, you are distributing the factor 3 over the whole number and the fraction part of 3 2/3.