What would the denominator of 7 represent in this question?

Question

I'm in year 6 and I just had a question about fractions.

If the question was:

"What is 4/7 of 56?"

Would the 7 denominator represent the 56 and then the 4 would mean your're taking 4 parts of that 56?

Thanks.

Answer 1

4/7 of 56 can be written in a few ways. One way is to write it as (56/7 * 4). This is the same as multiplying 56 by 1/7 and then multiplying that by 4 which translates to: take a seventh of 56 and multiply it by 4.

So essentially this means take 4 parts of 56/7. It can also be read as take 56 parts of 4/7 but the first is more precise if you read it as is from to right. Because this is really multiplication being done here, math rules allow you to move the denominator and put it under the 4 or 56 as you wish.