Question

How do you divide $\dfrac{3}{8}\div \dfrac{1}{4}$?

Answer 1

Hint: In the given question we have to divide the given fractions. To divide a fraction by fraction we will reciprocate the second fraction by flipping the numerator and denominator of a fraction. Then we will multiply the second fraction by first and simplify the fraction to get the desired answer.

Complete step-by-step solution:
We have been given $\dfrac{3}{8}\div \dfrac{1}{4}$.
We have to divide fractions.
We know that to divide a fraction by fraction we need to convert the division of the fraction into multiplication.
For this first we reciprocate the second fraction by interchanging the numerator and denominator of fraction. Then we multiply the second fraction by first, then we will get
$\Rightarrow \dfrac{3}{8}\times \dfrac{4}{1}$
To solve the multiplication of the fractions we have to multiply the numerators of both the fractions and multiply the denominators of both the fractions. Then we will get
$\Rightarrow \dfrac{12}{8}$
Now, simplifying the above obtained fraction we will get
$\Rightarrow \dfrac{3}{2} =1\dfrac{1}{2}$
Hence we get $\dfrac{3}{8}\div \dfrac{1}{4}=\dfrac{3}{2}=1\dfrac{1}{2}$.

Note: Alternatively we can solve the given question by using the first principle of division. For this first we need to make the denominators of the fractions the same and then we just divide the numerators of the fraction. In this way we just divide the counts and ignore the indicator of size. For dividing a fraction by whole number we need to change the whole number into fraction by considering the denominator as 1.