Customary capacity is understood as a system of equivalent units—fluid ounces, cups, pints, quarts, and gallons—with relationships such as 8 fluid ounces = 1 cup, 2 cups = 1 pint, 2 pints = 1 quart, and 4 quarts = 1 gallon. Converting between these units involves multiplying or dividing by the appropriate power-of-two relationship while preserving the quantity, including when measurements are expressed as fractions or decimals; conversions to metric units and more advanced compound-unit reasoning are outside this scope.
To convert customary capacity units, use the relationship between the units. When converting from a larger unit to a smaller unit, multiply because more smaller units are needed.
Useful relationships include:
Example: Convert quarts to cups.
First, find how many cups are in quart:
and
So,
Now multiply quarts by cups per quart:
Therefore,
The amount has not changed; it is just expressed using smaller units.
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