What Is Partial Quotient?

By Staff WriterLast Updated April 05, 2020

Partial quotient is a step-by-step method of division wherein at each step, a partial answer is obtained. After all the steps have been completed, the partial answers are added together to get the quotient.

The partial quotient method involves repeated subtraction. The first step is to subtract from the dividend an easy multiple of the divisor. The subtraction is repeated until the difference is zero or smaller than the divisor. The quotient will be computed by adding the multiples of the divisor that were used as the subtrahend. One helpful tip would be to use numbers in the multiples of 10s or 5s in the first estimate as these numbers are considered to be “easy numbers.”