A clock shows the minute hand pointing exactly at the 9, and the hour hand is positioned between the 4 and the 5, closer to the 5. What time does the clock show?
A5:45 — the hour hand is close to the 5, so the hour must be 5
B4:45 — the hour hand has passed the 4 but not yet reached the 5, so the hour is still 4
C9:20 — read the minute hand number as the hour
D4:09 — the minute hand is on the 9, so add 9 minutes to the hour
The hour hand moves continuously as minutes pass. At 4:45, it has crept three-quarters of the way from the 4 to the 5 — it looks close to the 5, but has not yet crossed it. The rule is: read the hour as the most recent number the hand has passed (or is pointing directly at), not the one it is approaching. The minute hand at the 9 means 9 × 5 = 45 minutes. So the time is 4:45. Option A is the classic error — misreading a 'nearly 5' hour hand as already being 5.
Question 2 Multiple Choice
To read a time like 7:23 on an analog clock, what is the most reliable method?
ACount 23 individual tick marks from the 12, going clockwise
BCount by fives to the nearest five-minute mark (at the 4, which is 20 minutes), then count 3 more individual ticks to reach 23 minutes
CRead whatever number the minute hand is closest to and add 3
DMultiply the number the minute hand is near by 5, then guess the remainder
The strategy uses existing knowledge efficiently: count by fives to the nearest labeled five-minute mark (minute hand near the 4 = 20 minutes), then count individual ticks beyond that mark (3 more ticks = 3 more minutes), giving 20 + 3 = 23. This avoids counting all 23 ticks individually from scratch and builds on the count-by-fives skill already mastered. Option A, while technically possible, is slow and error-prone.
Question 3 True / False
When the hour hand on an analog clock appears to be almost touching the 8, the time is 8-something (i.e., the hour is 8).
TTrue
FFalse
Answer: False
The hour hand moves continuously all hour long. At 7:55, for example, the hour hand is very close to the 8 — but the time is still 7:55. The hour only becomes 8 when the hand actually crosses the 8 at 8:00. The rule is: read the hour from the most recent number the hand has passed. Until the hand crosses the 8, the hour is 7, regardless of how close the hand looks.
Question 4 True / False
The minute hand on an analog clock passes through exactly 60 equally spaced tick marks during one full rotation.
TTrue
FFalse
Answer: True
Each of the 12 numbers on the clock face represents a 5-minute interval (12 × 5 = 60). Between each pair of adjacent numbers there are 4 additional tick marks, making 5 intervals of 1 minute each per number. This is why each tick mark represents exactly 1 minute, and why counting individual ticks from a five-minute landmark gives precise minute readings.
Question 5 Short Answer
A classmate reads a clock and says 'The hour hand is close to the 6, so it must be about 6 o'clock.' Explain the mistake and describe the correct way to determine the hour from an analog clock.
Think about your answer, then reveal below.
Model answer: The mistake is reading the hour by which number the hand is approaching, rather than which number it has most recently passed. As minutes accumulate within an hour, the hour hand creeps steadily toward the next number — at 5:55 it is almost touching the 6, but the time is still 5:55. The correct rule is to use the smaller of the two surrounding numbers (the most recent marker the hand has passed). The hand points directly at a number only at the exact hour, such as 6:00.
The hour hand's continuous movement is the trickiest aspect of analog clock reading. Students who haven't internalized this rule often read the hour as the number the hand is nearest to, which is correct at the top of the hour but increasingly wrong as the minutes advance. Emphasizing 'which number has the hand passed most recently' corrects this systematically.