i ugently need to know how to divide a decimal by a decimal eg:6.0 divided by 2.4 i need to show all working on a basic skills exam please help!!!!

mel

Hi Mel

Remember that 6.0 divided by 2.4 is the same as the fraction 6.0/2.4 You want to change the denominator (2.4) to a whole number. You can do this by multiplying it by 10. But if you multiply the bottom (denominator) by 10 you must also multiply the top (numerator) by 10. This means that you have multiplied the fraction 6.0/2.4 by 10/10 which is only 1 and so keeps the value the same. It changes the question but the answer to the new question is the same as the answer to the original question. So, if you multiply the numerator by 10 it becomes 60 and if you multiply the denominator by 10 it becomes 24. So, instead of doing 6.0/2.4 you do 60/24. If you wanted to do 6.0/0.24 you would need to multiply the denominator by 100 to get a whole number and so you would also have to multiply the numerator by 100. So 6.0/0.24 would become 600/24.

Good luck on the exam!
Jack