Question

How many quarters does an hour have?

Answer 1

Hint: Quarter means the one of four equal parts into which something is divisible. Simply it is one fourth of the total. Here we are given an hour and to find quarter of it. We know that one hour is $ = 60 $ minutes, here we will divide minutes by four to get the required solution.

Complete step-by-step answer:
Now take the given hour and divide by four to gets its quarter part.
 $ \dfrac{{60}}{4} $
Find the factors in the numerator of the given fraction –
 $ = \dfrac{{15 \times 4}}{4} $
Common factors from the numerator and the denominator cancel each other. Therefore, remove from the numerator and the denominator in the above expression.
 $ = 15 $
So, there are four quarters in an hour of $ 15 $ minutes.
First quarter is the $ 15 $ minutes past the hour
Second quarter is $ 15 $ minutes past the first quarter.
That is $ 15 + 15 = 30 $ minutes
Framing in the form of an expression –
 $ \dfrac{{30}}{{60}} $
Finding the common factors in the above expression
 $ \dfrac{{30}}{{60}} = \dfrac{{30}}{{30 \times 2}} $
Common factors from the numerator and the denominator cancel each other. Therefore, remove from the above expression.
 $ \dfrac{{30}}{{60}} = \dfrac{1}{2} $
Hence, half an hour is the second quarter.
Another $ 15 $ minutes after second quarter is
 $ 15 + 15 + 15 = 45 $ minutes
It can expressed as –
 $ 60 - 45 = 15 $
So, it states that $ 15 $ minutes before the hour is the third quarter.
Another $ 15 $ minutes makes the complete hour.
 $ 15 + 15 + 15 + 15 = 60 $
Hence, $ 60 $ minutes is equal to an hour.
So, the fourth quarter is the hour itself.
So, the correct answer is “4”.

Note: One can solve the above example by visualizing the watch or the clock and making use of the hour hand and the minute hand of it. Also, remember the basic hour minute and quarter relations and correlation.