New to the forum and need some maths help please!

• March 4th 2013, 05:24 PM
FAL
New to the forum and need some maths help please!
Hi,

I joined this forum just now in the hope that someone might be able to help me...!

I'm attending a selection day for a post grad course (in Mental Health Nursing) this week, where in addition to my interview I will have to take literacy and numeracy tests. I've just been practising with some sample questions which the uni provided, but sadly as I'm not allowed to use a calculator and it's been 15 years since I studied maths, I got half of them wrong!!

I'm particularly stuck with converting decimals to fractions, specifically ones like 0.075... I know this turns in to 75/1000 and the final answer is apparently 3/40, but I have no idea how to reach this fraction without a calculator!

If anyone could possibly explain this step by step, I'd be extremely grateful...

Thanks :-)
• March 5th 2013, 05:20 PM
HallsofIvy
Re: New to the forum and need some maths help please!
Quote:

Originally Posted by FAL
Hi,

I joined this forum just now in the hope that someone might be able to help me...!

I'm attending a selection day for a post grad course (in Mental Health Nursing) this week, where in addition to my interview I will have to take literacy and numeracy tests. I've just been practising with some sample questions which the uni provided, but sadly as I'm not allowed to use a calculator and it's been 15 years since I studied maths, I got half of them wrong!!

I'm particularly stuck with converting decimals to fractions, specifically ones like 0.075... I know this turns in to 75/1000 and the final answer is apparently 3/40, but I have no idea how to reach this fraction without a calculator!

$\frac{75}{1000}= \frac{5(15)}{5(200)}= \frac{15}{200}= \frac{5(3)}{5(40)}= \frac{3}{40}$

Quote:

If anyone could possibly explain this step by step, I'd be extremely grateful...

Thanks :-)
• March 18th 2013, 03:25 PM
FAL
Re: New to the forum and need some maths help please!
Thank you very much HallsofIvy! Well I passed the assessments & got through the interview, & thankfully maths isn't quite as much of a headache now due to help from people like you - much appreciated :-)