Chapter 13
SIMPLE DIVISION
When do you need to be able to divide? You need to be able to do short division in your head when you
are shopping at the supermarket, when you are watching a sporting event, when you are handling
money or splitting up food.
If you have $30 to divide among 6 people, you need to be able to divide 6 into 30 to find out how
much money each person should receive. You would find they receive $5 each.
30 ÷ 6 = 5
5 × 6 = 30
If you are watching a cricket match and a team has scored 32 runs in 8 overs, how many runs per
over have they scored? What is their average run rate? You need to divide 32 by 8 to find the answer.
The answer is 4, or 4 runs per over.
32 ÷ 8 = 4
4 × 8 = 32
You need to be able to divide so you know when you are getting the most for your money. Which is
better value, a 2-litre bottle of drink for $2.75 or a 1.25-litre bottle for $2.00? You need to be able to
divide to work out which is the better buy.
Simple division
Many people think division is difficult and would rather not have to do it, but it is really not that hard. I
will show you how to make division easy. Even if you are confident with simple division, it might be
worthwhile reading this chapter.
Dividing smaller numbers
If you had to divide 10 lollies among 5 people, they would receive 2 lollies each. Ten can be divided
evenly by 5.
If you divided 33 maths books among 4 people, they would each receive 8 books, and there would be
1 book left over. Thirty-three cannot be evenly divided by 4. We call the 1 book left over the remainder.
We would write the calculation like this:
Or like this:We could ask, what do we multiply by 4 to get an answer of 33, or as close to 33 as we can without
going above? Four times 8 is 32, so the answer is 8. We subtract 32 from the number we are dividing to
find the remainder (what is left over).
Dividing larger numbers
Here is how we would divide a larger number. To divide 3,721 by 4, we would set out the problem like
this: