Question

What is the quotient of -5 and $-\dfrac{1}{2}?$

Answer 1

Hint: We know that the quotient is obtained by dividing the dividend by the divisor. We also know that when the divisor is a fraction, we will take the reciprocal of the divisor and multiply it with the dividend to get the quotient.

Complete step-by-step solution:
Let us consider the given problem. We are asked to find the quotient of $-5$ and $-\dfrac{1}{2}.$
In this case, as we know, $-5$ is the dividend and $-\dfrac{1}{2}$ is the divisor.
So, we will get $-5\div -\dfrac{1}{2}.$
AS we can see, the divisor is a fraction.
We know that when the divisor is a fraction, we need to take the reciprocal of the divisor and then we multiply it with the dividend to get the quotient.
So, we need to take the reciprocal of the divisor,$-\dfrac{1}{2}.$
We will get $-2.$
In the next step, we need to multiply the reciprocal of the divisor with the dividend.
We will get $-5\times -2.$
When we multiply two negative numbers, we will multiply the numbers and the sign of the product will be positive.
So, we will get $-5\times -2=10.$
Hence the quotient of $-5$ and $-\dfrac{1}{2}$ is $10.$

Note: We have already known that when we divide a number with the other, the former is called the dividend and the latter is called the divisor. Then the number that remains undividable is called the remainder and the number we obtain as result of the division is called the quotient. Also, we know that when we add the remainder with the product of the quotient and the divisor, we will get the dividend.