Video Transcript
Complete one-ninth what one-third,
using the symbol for is less than, is equal to, or is greater than.
These symbols that we have at the
end of this question are those that we use when we compare two values together. And in this question, we need to
choose the correct symbol to write in between two fractions. So, in other words, we’re comparing
two fractions. Is one-ninth less than one-third,
is it equal to one-third, or is it greater than one-third? And you might’ve noticed we’ve got
some fraction strips underneath that can help us. And we could look at them straight
away and be able to compare one-ninth with one-third.
But before we do that, let’s look
at the fractions themselves in the question. Both fractions have the same top
number or numerator. But look at these bottom
numbers. One-ninth has a bottom number or
denominator of nine, but the other fraction’s denominator is only three. Nine is greater than three, isn’t
it? So don’t you think that’s going to
mean one-ninth is greater than one-third? Think it might be time to look at
our fraction strips, don’t you? The first thing that we can say
about our fraction strips is they’re both the same length. This is really important when we’re
comparing fractions. It shows that the whole amount is
the same.
Now, the first fraction that’s
labeled is one-ninth. And we know that the denominator or
the bottom number in a fraction shows how many equal parts the whole amount has been
split into. So although we can’t see them all,
this fraction strip has been split into nine equal parts. In fact, should we draw them
on? There we go. Now, the numerator or the top
number in this fraction shows us how many of these parts we’re talking about. And because it’s one, we’re only
talking about one out of these nine parts. That’s where this blue part comes
from. Now, if we look at our second strip
for a moment, we can see that the bottom number or the denominator is smaller. But this doesn’t mean it’s a
smaller fraction.
Remember, the denominator shows us
how many equal parts we’re splitting the whole amount into. And if we’re splitting it into
three parts rather than nine, each of our three parts is going to be larger. And because our numerator is one
again, we’re only thinking about one out of these three parts. So that’s where our fraction strips
come from. Now we understand them; we can use
them to help. We can see that one out of nine
equal parts is a lot smaller than one out of three equal parts. One-ninth is less than
one-third. The symbol that we need to use in
between these two fractions to compare them is the one that means is less than.