Question

What is 7 divided by -7?

Answer 1

Hint: Here, we have to divide 7 by $ - 7 $ . So the dividend will be 7 and the divisor will be $ - 7 $ . Here the minus sign $ \left( - \right) $ means that the number is less than 0. The method to divide 7 by $ - 7 $ will be the same as we divide 7 by 7. The only difference will be that we will be adding a minus sign before our answer in this case.

Complete step by step solution:
In this question, we have to divide 7 by $ - 7 $ .
Here, the number that we have to divide is called a dividend, which is 7 in our question.
And the number that divides a number is known as the divisor, which is $ - 7 $ in our question.
In simple words, we have to divide 7 in some equal parts such that the sum of those equal parts will be equal to 7.
You might be wondering why there is minus $ \left( - \right) $ sign before the divisor 7.
This minus sign means that our divisor 7 is less than 0. The method to divide 7 by $ - 7 $ is the same as we divide 7 by 7. The only difference is that we will have to put a minus sign before the answer in this question.
So, if we divide 7 by 7, we get
  $ \dfrac{7}{7} = 1 $ , as 7 gets cancelled in both numerator and denominator.
Similarly, if we divide 7 by -7, we get
  $ \dfrac{7}{{ - 7}} = \dfrac{1}{{ - 1}} = - 1 $ .
Here, 7 gets cancelled in numerator and denominator leaving 1 in numerator and $ - 1 $ in denominator which is equal to $ - 1 $ .
Therefore, 7 divided by $ - 7 $ is $ - 1 $ .

Note: If both dividend and divisor are positive, the answer will be positive.
If the dividend is negative and the divisor is positive, the answer will be negative.
If the dividend is positive and the divisor is negative, the answer will be negative.
If both dividend and divisor are negative, the answer will be positive.