This math skill teaches how to subtract multi-digit numbers using borrowing. When subtracting from a smaller digit, a ten is borrowed from the next higher place value, making the current digit sufficiently large to proceed with the subtraction.
Subtraction of multi-digit numbers with a borrow
Test your understanding of subtraction of multi-digit numbers by practicing it! Work through the below exercises to use it in practice.
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Let's subtract 37 from 65 to find the difference
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With multiple digits we are best to arrange the numbers in columns with the ones digits lining up.
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Now we can start subtracting with the ones digits. But we have a small challenge because we're trying to subtract 7 from 5.
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We can do a little trick called a borrow, and take a ten from the 60. The 60 becomes 50 and our 5 becomes 15
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Now we can subtract 7 from 15, and we have 8 in the ones digit.
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Moving up to the tens column, we are now subtracting 3 from 5 because we borrowed the 10 in the previous step, so we have 2 in the tens column
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So 65 minus 37 is equal to 28. We can continue this pattern of borrowing and subtracting for any size of number.