Video Transcript
This robot multiplies any number by
three to get an answer. What would the answer in the
following case be? 32 times three.
In the picture, we can see a rather
colorful robot, can’t we? And this robot has been programmed
to do something quite special. If you give it any number at all,
it’ll multiply it by three and then give you the answer. Can you see it says times three on
its chest? And now, unfortunately, we don’t
have a robot to help us here, but we still need to find the answer to our
question. Because we can see the number 32
being given to the robot, we know it’s gonna times this number by three. And we’re asked, what’s the answer
going to be? So in other words, how can we find
the answer to 32 times three without a colorful robot to help us?
Do you know your three times table
fact up to 32 times three? Well, we usually stop learning
facts around 10 or 12 times something. We don’t usually go as far as 32
times a number. So to help us multiply this
two-digit number by a single digit, we can use the column method. To begin with, we can write out our
calculation vertically, in other words, with the numbers on top of each other. 32. And then we’re going to be
multiplying this, so we’ll draw the multiplication symbol. And we’re going to be multiplying
it by three. And then also, before we start, we
can draw an equal sign.
Now, as we’ve said already, 32 is a
two-digit number. And by writing it like this, we can
think about the ones and the tens parts of our number separately. 32 contains the digit two in the
ones place. It has two ones. So we can start off by multiplying
this part of the number by three. What are two ones times three? Well, this is a fact we already
know, isn’t it? Two times three equals six. So we can see our answer is going
to have six ones in it.
Now we just need to multiply the
tens part of our number. 32 has a three in the tens
place. It stands for three 10s. That’s where we get the number 30
from. And once again, we can use a fact
we already know to help us here. We know that three times three is
nine, and so three 10s times three is simply nine 10s, which just means we need to
write the digit nine in the tens place.
Now, there aren’t any more digits
in 32. It was only a two-digit number. We’ve multiplied both of our digits
by three. Two times three is six, and three
10s times three or 30 times three is nine 10s or 90. We don’t have a robot like this to
help us multiply two-digit numbers by three. But then we don’t need a robot like
this. We’ve got the column method, and
it’s pretty quick to use. 32 times three equals 96.
