Division word problems, step by step
Division shows up as two different questions.
The question
How many hutches did Suki fill?
Suki packed 16 food pellets into hutches of 8.
Suki packed 16 food pellets into hutches of 8.
numbers:168
16 ÷ 8
asked:How many hutches did Suki fill?
16 ÷ 8 =2
2 hutches
- Read it through once. Grabbing the numbers on the first read means choosing an operation before you know the story, and that choice is the only hard part of a word problem.
- Now the numbers: 16 and 8. Finding them is not the same as knowing what to do with them — that comes next, and it comes from the story rather than from the numbers.
- One total split into groups of a known size, with the question asking HOW MANY groups — which is the other thing dividing asks. So this one is a division: 16 ÷ 8.
- 16 ÷ 8 = 2 hutches. And answer the question that was ASKED — "How many hutches did Suki fill?" — in hutches, because the sum on its own is not yet an answer.
How it works.
- 01
Read it through once. Grabbing the numbers on the first read means choosing an operation before you know the story, and that choice is the only hard part of a word problem.
- 02
Now the numbers: 16 and 8. Finding them is not the same as knowing what to do with them — that comes next, and it comes from the story rather than from the numbers.
- 03
One total split into groups of a known size, with the question asking HOW MANY groups — which is the other thing dividing asks. So this one is a division: 16 ÷ 8.
- 04
16 ÷ 8 = 2 hutches. And answer the question that was ASKED — "How many hutches did Suki fill?" — in hutches, because the sum on its own is not yet an answer.