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Impress Your Friends With Mental Math Tricks

This document presents nine mental math tricks for multiplying numbers quickly without a calculator. The tricks include multiplying by 9, 11, 5, and powers of 2; squaring numbers ending in 5 or containing the same first digit; and multiplying pairs of numbers that differ by an even number or have digits summing to 10. Regular practice of these tricks can make arithmetic feel like a game and boost confidence in math abilities. Checking work is important until the tricks become second nature.

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392 views6 pages

Impress Your Friends With Mental Math Tricks

This document presents nine mental math tricks for multiplying numbers quickly without a calculator. The tricks include multiplying by 9, 11, 5, and powers of 2; squaring numbers ending in 5 or containing the same first digit; and multiplying pairs of numbers that differ by an even number or have digits summing to 10. Regular practice of these tricks can make arithmetic feel like a game and boost confidence in math abilities. Checking work is important until the tricks become second nature.

Uploaded by

ray_x
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Impress your friends with mental Math tricks

Being able to perform arithmetic quickly and mentally can greatly boost your self-esteem,
especially if you dont consider yourself to be very good at Math. And, getting comfortable
with arithmetic might just motivate you to dive deeper into other things mathematical.
This article presents nine ideas that will hopefully get you to look at arithmetic as a game,
one in which you can see patterns among numbers and pick then apply the right trick to
quickly doing the calculation.
The tricks in this article all involve multiplication.
Dont be discouraged if the tricks seem difficult at first. Learn one trick at a time. Read the
description, explanation, and examples several times for each technique youre learning.
Then make up some of your own examples and practice the technique.
As you learn and practice the tricks make sure you check your results by doing
multiplication the way youre used to, until the tricks start to become second nature.
Checking your results is critically important: the last thing you want to do is learn the tricks
incorrectly.

1. Multiplying by 9, or 99, or 999


Multiplying by 9 is really multiplying by 10-1.
So, 99 is just 9x(10-1) which is 910-9 which is 90-9 or 81.
Lets try a harder example: 469 = 4610-46 = 460-46 = 414.
One more example: 689 = 680-68 = 612.
To multiply by 99, you multiply by 100-1.
So, 4699 = 46x(100-1) = 4600-46 = 4554.
Multiplying by 999 is similar to multiplying by 9 and by 99.
38999 = 38x(1000-1) = 38000-38 = 37962.

2. Multiplying by 11
To multiply a number by 11 you add pairs of numbers next to each other, except for the
numbers on the edges.
Let me illustrate:
To multiply 436 by 11 go from right to left.
First write down the 6 then add 6 to its neighbor on the left, 3, to get 9.
Write down 9 to the left of 6.
Then add 4 to 3 to get 7. Write down 7.
Then, write down the leftmost digit, 4.
So, 43611 = is 4796.
Lets do another example: 325411.
The answer comes from these sums and edge numbers: (3)(3+2)(2+5)(5+4)(4) = 35794.
One more example, this one involving carrying: 465711.
Write down the sums and edge numbers: (4)(4+6)(6+5)(5+7)(7).
Going from right to left we write down 7.
Then we notice that 5+7=12.
So we write down 2 and carry the 1.
6+5 = 11, plus the 1 we carried = 12.
So, we write down the 2 and carry the 1.
4+6 = 10, plus the 1 we carried = 11.
So, we write down the 1 and carry the 1.
To the leftmost digit, 4, we add the 1 we carried.
So, 465711 = 51227 .

3. Multiplying by 5, 25, or 125


Multiplying by 5 is just multiplying by 10 and then dividing by 2. Note: To multiply by 10
just add a 0 to the end of the number.
125 = (1210)/2 = 120/2 = 60.
Another example: 645 = 640/2 = 320.
And, 42865 = 42860/2 = 21430.
To multiply by 25 you multiply by 100 (just add two 0s to the end of the number) then
divide by 4, since 100 = 254. Note: to divide by 4 your can just divide by 2 twice, since
22 = 4.
6425 = 6400/4 = 3200/2 = 1600.
5825 = 5800/4 = 2900/2 = 1450.
To multiply by 125, you multipy by 1000 then divide by 8 since 8125 = 1000. Notice that
8 = 22x2. So, to divide by 1000 add three 0s to the number and divide by 2 three times.
32125 = 32000/8 = 16000/4 = 8000/2 = 4000.
48125 = 48000/8 = 24000/4 = 12000/2 = 6000.

4. Multiplying together two numbers that differ by a small even number


This trick only works if youve memorized or can quickly calculate the squares of numbers.
If youre able to memorize some squares and use the tricks described later for some kinds
of numbers youll be able to quickly multiply together many pairs of numbers that differ by
2, or 4, or 6.
Lets say you want to calculate 1214.
When two numbers differ by two their product is always the square of the number in
between them minus 1.
1214 = (1313)-1 = 168.
1618 = (1717)-1 = 288.
99101 = (100100)-1 = 10000-1 = 9999
If two numbers differ by 4 then their product is the square of the number in the middle (the
average of the two numbers) minus 4.

1115 = (1313)-4 = 169-4 = 165.


1317 = (1515)-4 = 225-4 = 221.
If the two numbers differ by 6 then their product is the square of their average minus 9.
1218 = (1515)-9 = 216.
1723 = (2020)-9 = 391.

5. Squaring 2-digit numbers that end in 5


If a number ends in 5 then its square always ends in 25. To get the rest of the product take
the left digit and multiply it by one more than itself.
3535 ends in 25. We get the rest of the product by multiplying 3 by one more than 3. So,
34 = 12 and thats the rest of the product. Thus, 3535 = 1225.
To calculate 6565, notice that 67 = 42 and write down 4225 as the answer.
8585: Calculate 89 = 72 and write down 7225.

6. Multiplying together 2-digit numbers where the first digits are the
same and the last digits sum to 10
Lets say you want to multiply 42 by 48. You notice that the first digit is 4 in both cases.
You also notice that the other digits, 2 and 8, sum to 10. You can then use this trick:
multiply the first digit by one more than itself to get the first part of the answer and
multiply the last digits together to get the second (right) part of the answer.
An illustration is in order:
To calculate 4248: Multiply 4 by 4+1. So, 45 = 20. Write down 20.
Multiply together the last digits: 28 = 16. Write down 16.
The product of 42 and 48 is thus 2016.
Notice that for this particular example you could also have noticed that 42 and 48 differ by
6 and have applied technique number 4.
Another example: 6466. 67 = 42. 46 = 24. The product is 4224.
A final example: 8684. 89 = 72. 64 = 24. The product is 7224

7. Squaring other 2-digit numbers


Lets say you want to square 58. Square each digit and write a partial answer. 55 = 25.
88 = 64. Write down 2564 to start. Then, multiply the two digits of the number youre
squaring together, 58=40.
Double this product: 402=80, then add a 0 to it, getting 800.
Add 800 to 2564 to get 3364.
This is pretty complicated so lets do more examples.
3232. The first part of the answer comes from squaring 3 and 2.
33=9. 22 = 4. Write down 0904. Notice the extra zeros. Its important that every square
in the partial product have two digits.
Multiply the digits, 2 and 3, together and double the whole thing. 23x2 = 12.
Add a zero to get 120. Add 120 to the partial product, 0904, and we get 1024.
5656. The partial product comes from 55 and 66. Write down 2536.
56x2 = 60. Add a zero to get 600.
5656 = 2536+600 = 3136.
One more example: 6767. Write down 3649 as the partial product.
67x2 = 422 = 84. Add a zero to get 840.
6767=3649+840 = 4489.

8. Multiplying by doubling and halving


There are cases when youre multiplying two numbers together and one of the numbers is
even. In this case you can divide that number by two and multiply the other number by 2.
You can do this over and over until you get to multiplication this is easy for you to do.
Lets say you want to multiply 14 by 16. You can do this:
1416 = 288 = 564 = 1122 = 224.
Another example: 1215 = 630 = 63 with a 0 at the end so its 180.

4817 = 2434 = 1268 = 6136 = 3272 = 816. (Being able to calculate that 327 = 81 in
your head is very helpful for this problem.)

9. Multiplying by a power of 2
To multiply a number by 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, or some other power of 2 just keep doubling the
product as many times as necessary. If you want to multiply by 16 then double the number
4 times since 16 = 22x22.
1516: 152 = 30. 302 = 60. 602 = 120. 1202 = 240.
238: 232 = 46. 462 = 92. 922 = 184.
548: 542 = 108. 1082 = 216. 2162 = 432.
Practice these tricks and youll get good at solving many different kinds of arithmetic
problems in your head, or at least quickly on paper. Half the fun is identifying which trick
to use. Sometimes more than one trick will apply and youll get to choose which one is
easiest for a particular problem.
Multiplication can be a great sport! Enjoy.

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