In this section we look at how to write fractions as decimals.
Method 1
You should already know that:
If the fraction has 10, 100 or 1000 as the denominator, we can reverse
the process we used to convert decimals to fractions.
To convert to a decimal,
we need to write 37 so that the last digit appears in the hundredths column, i.e. 0.37.
From this we can see that:
Method 2
Look at the examples below:
If the fraction isn't like the one above, we may be able to change it to an equivalent fraction
which does
have 10, 100 or 1000 as the denominator. The fractions can then be converted in the same way as before.
Method 3
Sometimes we are not able to find an equivalent fraction which has 10, 100 or 1000 as the denominator.
In these cases, we need to divide the numerator by the denominator.
If we calculate 37 ÷ 100, we also get the answer 0.37 |
So, to write as a decimal, we need to calculate 5 ÷ 8:
So = 0.625 as a decimal.
Practice Questions
Convert each of these fractions into decimals, then click
to see whether you are correct.
(a) | |
(b) | |
(c) |
 
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