Question

EXPLAIN HOW YOU WOULD USE REPEATED SUBTRACTION TO FIND 8 DIVIDED BY 2

Answer 1

Imagine that you have 8 apples which you want to hand out to 2 people. You want each person to get an equal amount of apples, so you decide to give 2 apples at a time (one apple to each), until you run out or you don't have enough to give each of the 2 people another apple. Notice that each time you give out 2 apples, you have to subtract 2 from the total left over, and each person gets one apple. Let's see what happens:
1. 8-2=6 -- each person now has 1 apple, and there are 6 more to hand out;
2. 8-2-2=4 -- each person now has 2 apples, and there are 4 more to pass out;
3. 8-2-2-2=2 -- each person now has 3 apples, and there are 2 more to distribute;
4. 8-2-2-2-2=0 -- each person now has 4 apples and there are no more apples to pass out.
Then you hand out 8 apples to 2 people and each of the get 4 apples. This meansthat 8÷2=4.

Answer 2

Repeated subtraction is another way of thinking about division. If you want to divide by 2, you can subtract 2 two times. This gives you 8 - 2 - 2 = 4. This is the same as 8/2 = 4.