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How Do You Figure Out the Sign of a Product or Quotient?

In this tutorial, you'll learn how to determine the sign of a product or quotient.

Summary

  1. A product is the answer to a multiplication problem
  2. A quotient is the answer to a division problem
  3. 5•3 gives a positive because 5 and 3 are both positive
  4. -5•-3 gives a positive because -5 and -3 are both negative
  5. Numbers with the same sign produce a positive
  6. -3•5 gives a negative because -3 and 5 have unlike signs
  7. Numbers with opposite signs produce a negative
  8. An odd number of negatives gives a negative result
  9. An even number of negatives gives a positive result

Notes

    1. A positive number times a positive number gives a positive answer
    1. A negative number times a negative number also gives a positive answer
    1. A negative number times a positive number gives a negative answer
    1. Since multiplication and division are opposite operations, the same rule applies to division
    1. Here we are dividing a negative by a positive
    2. So since we have unlike signs, the result is negative, just like if we were multiplying
    1. Multiply the absolute values of the numbers together
    1. The number of negatives in the problem will tell us what the sign of our answer will be
    1. Odd numbers are numbers like 1, 3, 5, 7, and so on
    1. Even numbers are numbers like 2, 4, 6, 8, and so on
    1. First multiply the numbers together, ignoring the signs
    2. 5•3•2•2 is equal to 60
    3. -5 and -2 are negative, so we have 2 negatives
    4. Since 2 is an even number, our answer is positive
    5. So we leave our answer as positive 60
    1. 5•3•2•2 is still equal to 60
    2. But since we changed 3 to -3, now we have 3 negatives: -5, -3, and -2
    3. So since 3 is an odd number, our answer will be negative
    4. So we need a negative sign in front of our 60
    1. Odd numbers are numbers like 1, 3, 5, 7, and so on
    1. Even numbers are numbers like 2, 4, 6, 8, and so on