What Is the Answer to a Division Problem Called?
The answer to a division problem is called a quotient. This word is derived from the latin term “quotiens,” which translates to “how many times.”
Division is the process of splitting a number into equal groups. The dividend is the number that is split. The divisor is the number of equal groups into which the dividend is split, and the quotient, or answer to the problem, is the number of items in each of the equal groups.
A quotient is found by dividing one number by another number. When dividing two numbers which are positive, the quotient is also positive. Similarly, when dividing two negative numbers, the result is also positive. However, when dividing a positive and a negative number, the result is negative.
A number can never be divided by zero (5/0), as this implies that a pie of size zero is split evenly in five pieces, which cannot happen. The response to a “divided by zero” problem is NOT zero — instead the term is that it doesn’t exist (also known as DNE).
However, a number can be divided by a larger number. The result of this operation is a fraction, decimal or percent.
