Answer:
2. <
Explanation:
To compare these two fractions we can first find them a common denominator. A common denominator between 4 and 16 is 16.
To get from 16 from 4 we multiply by 4 so we do the same to the numerator, changing 1/4 to 4/16.
5/16 already has a denominator of 16 so we can leave that one as is.
4/16___5/16
In this form it is obvious that 5/16 is the larger fraction because 5 is larger than 4, meaning that 5/16 is larger than 1/4.