How Do You Reduce (Simplify) A Fraction To Lowest Terms?
A very common task in math class is to take a fraction like 4/8 and reduce it to lowest terms. Sometimes this is referred to as simplifying the faction. Understand that “reducing” is really a misnomer. We’re actually converting the fraction to an equivalent one, but if we don’t do this procedure, the answer is typically considered to be wrong. You’ll get either partial credit or none at all. This article shows you the steps to performing this task, and assumes that you know the basics of how fractions work, and the associated terminology. Let’s examine the fraction 16/24. To reduce this fraction, we need to find a number that divides evenly into both the numerator and denominator. Ideally we want this number to be as large as possible. We call such a number the greatest common factor (GCF). A factor is a number that divides evenly into another number. Note that there are many methods to finding the GCF of two numbers. Many involve all sorts of “tricks” that truly aren’t practical in mo
