A motor racing circuit has the length of 5 5/6 milesa straight section of the circuit has the length 1 1/4 mileswhat fraction of the circuit is the straight section?

The straight section is 3/14 of the total circuit. This is mostly a problem of adjusting fractions to have common denominators. The fraction of the total circuit is (length of straight section) / (length of total racing circuit) = (1 1/4) / (5 5/6) first, convert the integer parts to a fractions with the same denominator as the fractional part: = ((1x4) / 4 + 1/4) / ((5x6 / 6) + 5/6) combine the fractions to make a single fraction in numerator & denominator: = (4/4 + 1/4) / (30/6 + 5/6) = (5/4) / (35/6) the division by 35/6 can be done by instead multiplying by the inverse of 35/6: = 5/4 x 6/35 which is done by multiplying the numerators and denominators, and then simplifying by factoring out common divisors from top and bottom: = (5 x 6) / (4 x 35) = 30 / 140 = 6 / 28 = 3/14