7th Grade Math Work: What Do 7th Grade Math Students Learn?

An Overview of 7th Grade Math

The Number System

At the 7th grade level, your student will be using his or her prior knowledge of addition, subtraction, multiplication and division to work with rational numbers, which are numbers that can be expressed as a simple fraction. Additionally, your 7th grader should be able to use long division to convert a rational number to a decimal. For instance, the rational number 6/8 can also be written as 0.75 because (6 ÷ 8 = 0.75).

Ratios and Proportional Relationships

Your 7th grader will need to use his or her knowledge of proportional relationships to solve multi-step problems that involve ratios and percents. Your child will also learn to calculate the unit rate associated with the ratios of fractions, such as length, area or other similarly measured quantities. Your student must be able to show proportional relationships using equations and to use visuals, such as tables, diagrams and graphs, as a means of identifying the constant rate of a unit.

Geometry

As your child learns about geometry, he or she will be solving real-world problems that involve determining the surface area, volume and area of 2-dimensional and 3-dimensional objects. These objects will be composed of cubes, quadrilaterals, triangles, polygons and right prisms. Your 7th grader will also draw a geometric shape based on given characteristics. Your child should also use what he or she knows about complementary, vertical, adjacent and supplementary angles to determine the value of an unknown angle in a geometric figure.

Expressions and Equations

In this mathematical focus area, your child will be learning how to add, subtract, factor and expand linear expressions with rational coefficients. Your 7th grader will also be solving multi-step problems that contain positive and negative rational numbers in different forms, such as whole numbers, fractions and decimals. These multi-step problems will often require your child to convert between the different forms of numbers, such as changing a fraction to a decimal form.

Statistics and Probability

At this grade level, your child will learn that statistics are used to gain information about a population of people. Your 7th grader will use a sampling of the data to make inferences about the population as a whole. It will also be important for your child to develop a model to show probability and to determine the probability of a specific event. This will require your student to use tables, organized lists, simulations and tree diagrams. For instance, your child may learn to use a model to determine the likelihood of drawing a red ball from the bag that's filled with multi-colored balls.