Quarter hours and order of time
Show quarter past and quarter to on the clock, write a time two ways and decide which job took longer.
- France: grade 2
- Germany: grade 3
- Iran: grade 2
- Russia: grade 2
Guide
An hour is 60 minutes. Half an hour is 30 minutes and a quarter of an hour is 15 minutes. When the long hand points to 3, a quarter of an hour has passed: quarter past 9 is 9:15.
When the long hand points to 9, a quarter of an hour is left: quarter to 10 is 9:45. The short hand is close to 10 but has not reached it yet.
We write a time in words, quarter past eight, and in numbers, 8:15. The number after the colon is the minutes: 15 minutes, not 3.
If two jobs start at the same time, the one that finishes later took more hours. The seasons come in order: spring, summer, autumn, winter, then spring again.