Question

A. Describe two ways to find product 4.2 (6+ 0.43)

b. What property of multiplication does your answer to part A illustrate?

Answer 1

First method:

What we can do first is to distribute directly 4.2 to 6 and 0.43, that is:

4.2 (6 + 0.43)

= 4.2 * 6 + 4.2 * 0.43

= 25.2 + 1.806

= 27.006

Second method:

We can add the two numbers 6 and 0.43 then multiply with 4.2, that is:

4.2 (6 + 0.43)

= 4.2 (6.43)

= 27.006

What we see is the Distributive Property of multiplication which states that multiplying the sum of a number is similar to multiplying each number and then adding the products.