What are Benchmark Fractions? | Comparing & Ordering

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Did you know that you can use benchmark fractions to compare and order a set of given fractions from least to greatest or greatest to least?

Benchmark fractions are common fractions, such as one half, that can be used to be able to identify a fraction of greater or lesser value.

For example let's compare the fraction ⅛ to ⅚.

In our last video we learned that our denominator tells us the total number of fractional parts that our whole has been partitioned or divided into.

In this example we will use the benchmark fraction of ½ to identify the larger or smaller fraction in both ⅛ and ⅚.

Let's start off by taking our whole and partitioning it into 2 equal parts to represent ½.

Now let's represent the fraction ⅛.

Since our denominator is 8. We will partition our whole into 8 equal parts and since our numerator is 1 we can shade 1 of the fractional parts to represent ⅛.

If we compare the quantity of the shaded area in both ½ and ⅛ we can clearly see that ⅛ is less than ½.

Now let’s see if the fraction ⅚ is greater or less than 1/2. If we were to take a whole and divided into 6 equal parts and shade 5 of those parts to represent ⅚ we can clearly see that it is greater than ½.

Since ⅚ is greater than ½ and is very close to a whole and ⅛ is less than a half we can see that ⅚ has a greater value.

The fraction ½ is a benchmark fraction because it can help us compare fractions that are of greater and lesser value to one half.

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