Okay, let’s figure out what we get when we multiply 2 1/2 and 1 1/4. Sounds a bit tricky, right? It did to me, too, when I first saw this problem on a worksheet I was trying to solve yesterday.
I started by looking at these mixed numbers, and honestly, they looked a bit intimidating. I mean, how do you multiply fractions that also have whole numbers attached to them? I paused for a moment, thinking about what I should do next. I remembered that mixed numbers are just whole numbers and fractions combined. So, I decided to convert them into something easier to handle – improper fractions.
For 2 1/2, I multiplied the whole number (2) by the denominator (2) and added the numerator (1). This gave me 5. So, 2 1/2 became 5/2. I did the same thing with 1 1/4. Multiply 1 by 4, add 1, and you get 5. That made 1 1/4 into 5/4.
Now, I had 5/2 multiplied by 5/4. This looked way simpler! I multiplied the numerators (5 times 5) which gave me 25, and the denominators (2 times 4) which resulted in 8. So, I ended up with 25/8.
But wait, I wasn’t done yet! I noticed that 25/8 was an improper fraction, and I wanted to turn it back into a mixed number. I divided 25 by 8. It went in 3 times with a remainder of 1. There I had it, 3 1/8!
My Result
- I started with the problem: 2 1/2 x 1 1/4.
- Converted the mixed numbers to improper fractions: 5/2 x 5/4.
- Multiplied the fractions: 25/8.
- Converted back to a mixed number: 3 1/8.
So, after all that, I found that the product of 2 1/2 and 1 1/4 is 3 1/8. It was a bit of a process, but breaking it down step by step really helped me understand how to tackle these kinds of problems. Hope this helps you too if you ever encounter a similar fraction problem!
