Many people aren’t aware that there are two different types of division. Even if you search the web, only one type mostly comes up. It’s the type we learn first: that when we share one quantity, we split it into equal parts. This is partitive division, or dividing a quantity into parts. When we divide a whole amount, partitive division tells us how many items there are in each group. Let’s look at a couple of examples.
Jeanine bought 24 buns for a party. She wanted to put an equal amount on each of 6 tables.
How many buns should she put on each table?
