Most students will have seen short division (bus stop method) and long division and there is often confusion between the two
Fortunately, you only need one – so use short division
While short division is best when dividing by a single digit, for bigger numbers you need a different approach
You can use other areas of maths that you know to help – eg. cancelling fractions, “shortcuts” for dividing by 2 and 10, and the repeated addition (“chunking”) method covered in (Non-Calculator) Multiplication
1. Short division (bus stop method)
Apart from where you can use shortcuts such as dividing by 2 or by 5, this method is best used when dividing by a single digit
eg. 534 ÷ 6
So, 534 ÷ 6 = 89
2. Factoring & cancelling
This involves treating division as you would if you were asked to cancel fractions
You can use the fact that with division, most non-calculator questions will have only number answers
The only thing to be aware of is that this might not be the case if you’ve been asked to write a fraction as a mixed number (but if you are asked to do that it should be obvious from the question)
eg. 1008 ÷ 28
1008 ÷ 28 = 504 ÷ 14 = 252 ÷ 7 = 36
You may have spotted the first two values (1008 and 28) are both divisible by 4 which is fine but if not, divide top and bottom by any number you can
To do the last part (252 ÷ 7) you can use the short division method above
3. Intelligent repeated addition
This is virtually identical to the version for multiplication – the process stops when the number dividing into is reachedeg 1674 ÷ 27This is the same as saying ? × 27 = 1674So we can build up in “chunks” of 27 until we get to 16741 × 27 = 2710 × 27 = 270
20 × 27 = 54040 × 27 = 1080
60 × 27 = 1620 … by using the last two results added together.Now you are close we can add on 27 one at a time again.61 × 27 = 1647
62 × 27 = 1674So 1674 ÷ 27 = 62
4. Dividing by 10, 100, 1000, … (Powers of 10)
This is a case of moving digits (or decimal points) or knocking off zeroseg. 380 ÷ 10 = 38
45 ÷ 100 = 0.45
5. Dividing by 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, … (Powers of 2)
This time it is a matter of repeatedly halvingeg. 280 ÷ 8 = 140 ÷ 4= 70 ÷ 2 = 35
On the non-calculator paper, division is very likely to have a whole number (exact) answer.? So if, when using the repeated addition method, you do not reach this figure then it is likely you’ve made an error in your calculations somewhere.