Improper Fractions

Who Are They and How to Deal With Them

What are improper fractions? How are they different from other types of fractions? What is the relationship between various types of fractions?

If these are some of the questions barging your mind right now then read on to discover the mystery behind all these. Here I will attempt to clear as much of your doubts as possible on fractions that are not proper.

So let’s start by introducing you to the subject.

The fractions where the numerator is greater than or equal to the denominator are called improper fractions.

Let’s look at some examples

1/4

In the above fraction the numerator is 1 and the denominator is 4. We all know 1 is less than 4. Thus the numerator is less than the denominator.

Now let’s take a fraction like 5/5

Here the numerator is 5. The denominator is 5 as well. Thus the numerator is equal to the denominator. This again satisfies the criteria for being called as not a proper fraction.

Now that you understand what a not proper fraction looks like, let’s get into conversion techniques of fractions in various forms.

Mixed to Improper

Here are the steps that you should follow to convert a mixed fraction to an improper one. As an example let’s take the mixed fraction 1 2/3

To convert it into an improper one please follow the following steps

Step #1) Multiply the whole number with the denominator of the fractional number. For this example multiply 1 (whole number) with 3 (denominator of the fraction). That gives us 3.

Step #2) Take the result obtained in step one and add the numerator of the fraction to it. For this example it would be 3 added with 2. That gives us 5. This resultant becomes the numerator of the resulting fraction.

Step #3) Arrange the fraction with the numerator obtained in step two (5 in our example) and denominator same as the one in the fraction of the mixed number (3 for the example). Thus the fraction becomes 5/3.

Improper to Mixed

If you want to convert fractions that are not proper to mixed numbers then follow the steps mentioned below.

Step #1) Divide the numerator by the denominator. The quotient becomes the whole number of the mixed fraction.

Step #2) The remainder of the division carried out in the first step becomes the numerator of the proper fraction part of the mixed fractional number. The denominator of this fraction is same as the denominator of the given fraction.

So that’s about it! Hope your concepts on improper fractions and the methodology involved in converting mixed fractions to improper fractions and vice versa are cleared up now.


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