MathBench > Miscellaneous

Tricks with Division

Three tricks division can do

Frequently, in these modules and in your biology classes, you will be asked to make a variety of calculations involving division. No, we're not going to go into doing long division -- you do get to keep your calculator. However, division is still a rather tricky subject, and one that often gets students in trouble. The question is:

What gets divided by what?

Luckily, there's a very simple answer:

It depends.

Specifically, it depends on what you're trying to do with the division. But there are a number of "flavors" of division that I list below -- most of the time, what you're trying to do will fall into one of them.

    magic tricks in 2 minits
  1. Ratios
  2. Percent, Proportion, or Probability
  3. Percent Change

We'll go through each of these options. By the end, you should feel confident making a given calculation without consulting your instructor -- and you should also feel confident choosing which calculation fits a given situation.