This is such an amazing trick/method to approaching long division. I am currently tutoring a girl and she has trouble with long division. While I was searching for tricks, I stumbled upon your brilliant method, and I have tried this problem, 79 into 44872 and have gotten 568. But I think I would mess up if not careful with the multiplication part of the method (multiplying by ones) because it’s one of the most essential steps. I never learned this while I was in grade school but thank you for sharing & teaching your knowledge with us.

Best,
Sadia

Professor Homunculus sez:

Kate, I’m sorry to say that I don’t know or teach the hangman method.

Best of luck,

Brian

I have attempted this question using your method: 3650/242
and keep getting confused with the zero after the decimal place.

The answer is 15.08264 but using your method I get 15.8264
I am confused as to how I should know that at zero should be there.

Kind Regards
Claire

Professor Homunculus sez:

Claire,

That’s a good question. I tried it myself, and think I found the problem. At onw point, you endu up having to subtract 1210 from 1230, correct?

At that point, you get 20. Then you bring down a zero, making it 200. There, you have to ask yourself, “How many times does 242 go into that 200?” And the answer to that, of course, is zero.

I think you may have forgotten to write that zero as part of the quotient. It would go in the tenths position.

Then, after that, you would bring down another zero to make it 2000, and 242 would go into that 8 times, so the 8 would go in the hundredths position.

Each time you bring a digit down, you have to write something in quotient.

Do you see how that could be? Does that make sense to you?

I hope that clears it up.

To really make sure you understand the method, learn the details at Long Division at MathMojo.com

All the best,

Professor Homunculus