What Is Quarter Past in Time and How to Read It

The word ‘quarter past’ is a combination of two words, past, which means something that has happened or gone, and quarter, which means 1/4th of something. Here, we should notice that this word is used in time. We know that 1 hr is equal to 60 minutes and 1/4th of these minutes are \[\frac{1}{4}\] x 60 = 15 minutes. So, the quarter of an hour is 15 minutes.

Now, when we talk about this quarter past thing in terms of time, we say it is 15 minutes past an hour or 15 minutes after an hour. For example, 1: 15 p.m. is quarter past 1.

Here, we are going to talk about how quarter past is represented in time with the help of a wall clock with solved examples to make you crystal clear on this concept.

How do We Understand Quarter Past in Time?

We observe that the hands of the clock move from left to right, i.e., in a clockwise direction.

• So, when the minute hand is on the right side of the clock, it shows the number of minutes past the hour.

• On the other hand, when the minute hand is on the left side of the clock, it shows the number of minutes to the next hour.

However, we are going to focus on the first point, i.e., the motion of the hands of a clock on the right side of a clock.

Below, you can see the wall clock showing the direction of motion of its hands:

Motion of the hands of a wall clock

Now, if we divide the clock into four equal parts, then each part of the clock represents a quarter.

Examples of Quarter Past

Example 1: Now, let us assume that the below wall clock has a minute hand at 3. Here, we must notice the following thing:

Time - 8:15

Since the minute hand of a clock makes 60 minutes after making one complete motion, each number starting from 12 and ending at 12 itself represents 5 minutes, which means 3 x 5 = 15 minutes. Here, this 15 minutes is one quarter of an hour.

So, we understand that the time is said to be quarter past hour. From the above wall clock, we conclude that the time is quarter past 8 or 15 minutes past 8.

Example 2: Now, let us take another case of a watch showing a minute hand at 3 and an hour hand at 12.

Time - 12:15

Here, again, we have 3 x 5 = 15, also the hour hand is at 12, so we have quarter past 12 or 15 minutes past 12.

Example 3:

Time - 1:45

Now, here we have a minute hand at 9, so it becomes 9 x 5 = 45 minutes. This time, we don’t find the minute hand after the hour hand, however, it is 15 minutes before 2.

So, we have quarter to 2. In minutes, 45 minutes past 1. One more thing to note here is the time we have discussed here is said to be quarter to the next hour.

So, this was all about how we represent what is quarter past in Maths along with solved examples. We also got to see the difference between quarter past and quarter to in our last example. Therefore, you can visualise all these examples with the help of your wall clock to get a clear insight of this topic.