Questions: Telling Time to the Nearest 5 Minutes

Question 1

The minute hand points to the 9 and the hour hand is between the 2 and the 3. What time is it?

• A. 9:02 — because the minute hand is on 9
• B. 2:45 — because the hour is 2 (the last number passed) and 9 × 5 = 45 minutes
• C. 3:45 — because the hour hand is heading toward 3
• D. 2:09 — because there are 9 minutes past 2

Answer: (B)

Two things to get right: (1) The minute hand on 9 means 9 × 5 = 45 minutes — you skip-count by 5s, not read the number directly. (2) The hour hand between 2 and 3 means the hour is 2, the last number it passed — never the number it's heading toward. Options A and D both misread the minute hand as a literal number of minutes; option C takes the wrong hour.

Question 2

Why does skip-counting by 5s help you read the minute hand on a clock?

• A. It doesn't — you read the numbers 1–12 directly as the minutes
• B. The 12 positions on the clock face each represent 5 minutes, so each number the minute hand points to equals that number times 5
• C. Skip-counting by 5s tells you what hour it is
• D. You skip-count to add the hour and minutes together

Answer: (B)

The clock face divides 60 minutes into 12 equal segments of 5 minutes each. The minute hand on the 1 = 5 minutes, on the 2 = 10 minutes, on the 3 = 15 minutes, and so on. This is exactly the skip-counting sequence: 5, 10, 15, 20... Learning to count around the clock by 5s is the core skill for reading minutes.

Question 3

For most of the hour, the hour hand is between two numbers rather than pointing exactly at one.

• T. True
• F. False

Answer: True

The hour hand moves continuously and slowly throughout the hour — it only points exactly at a number at the moment the hour begins. By 15 minutes past, it has already moved a quarter of the way toward the next number. This is why you always read the last number the hour hand passed, not the nearest one.

Question 4

If the minute hand points to the 4, the clock shows 4 minutes past the hour.

• T. True
• F. False

Answer: False

The minute hand pointing to 4 means 4 × 5 = 20 minutes. The numbers on a clock don't show minutes directly — they are markers for every 5 minutes. Reading the minute hand as a literal number of minutes is the most common mistake when learning to tell time.

Question 5

The minute hand on a clock points to the 7. How many minutes past the hour is it? Walk through the steps to figure it out.

Model answer: 35 minutes past the hour. Skip-count by 5s from the 12 around to the 7: 5 (at 1), 10 (at 2), 15 (at 3), 20 (at 4), 25 (at 5), 30 (at 6), 35 (at 7).

Each number on the clock face is 5 minutes further along than the previous one. To find the minutes, count how many 5s you need to reach that number, or just skip-count by 5s around the clock until you land on the number the minute hand points to. The 7 is the seventh stop in the skip-count sequence, giving 35 minutes.