I agree with those who point out that you are asking two different questions. Here is an attempt at explaining why the answers they give are reasonable (and not just 'because the rules say so"!)1/3 of 1/8 is 1/24. [(1/3)(1/8) = 1/24] verify the answer this way: 1/24 + 1/24 + 1/24 = 3/24 = 1/8. thus, if you have 1/8 of a candy bar and divide it into three equal pieces, each piece will be 1/24 of the bar. Note that you are dividing the 1/8 bar into 3 pieces...so you divide by 3 (or multiply by 1/3) to find 1/3 of 1/8. You do not divide by 1/3 to find 1/3 of 1/8, since you are not breaking up the 1/8 bar into "1/3 of a piece" , whatever the heck that would mean!1/8 divided by 1/3 is a bit harder to visualize. Suppose you have 1/8 of an hour to listen to a recording. the recording takes 1/3 of an hour to play. How many times can you listen to the recording in 1/8 of an hour? obviously you cannot listen to the whole thing even once, since 1/3 is larger than 1/8. So 1/8 divided by 1/3 is less than one. But you can certainly listen to more than 1/24 of the recording. In fact, you can listen to 3/8 of the recording. that is 1/8 divided by 1/3 is 3/8, which is what the "invert and multiply" rule gives: 1/8 times 3/1 = 3/8....
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