Multiplying By 11 Maths Trick

Multiply any number by 11, in your head, very quickly and amaze your friends with this great little maths trick - and children just love showing off how clever they can be at doing this.

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You know when you sat a mock Maths exam and those nasty examiners stuck in a question like, 11 x 16, and you thought 'well we only learned up to 11 x 12 why do they do this? I'll just miss it out' - save your kids from having that happen to them, we don't have to do that anymore, here is a very quick and easy little hub page about the 11 times table / multiplying by 11. Nothing scary, good fun and a little party trick for you all out there to amaze your friends, family and of course the teachers.

Everyone knows how to multiply by 11 - until you hit a certain point:

11 x 1 = 11

11 x 1 = 22

11 x 3 = 33

11 x 4 = 44 and so on

Yes this is one of those multiplication tables that everyone knows, and we're all supposed to know our tables from 11 x 1 to 11 x 12. There are also people out there, you know who you are, that get to 11 x 11 or 11 x 12 and they have to stop and think about the answer, what if I tell you there's a clever little trick to multiplying something by 11 and that after you read this you will be able to multiply even larger numbers by 11 in your head in the blink of an eye?

It's true! Trust me!

Say you have to multiply the number 24 by 11, no don't reach for a calculator, it's really simple honestly.

First of all you take the first digit of your number 24 which is 2 and then you imagine a space before you have your second digit which will be the 4.

So in your mind it should look like:

2 _ 4

Now all you have to do is add the 2 and the 4 which gives you 6 and you place the 6 in the gap and you get:

2 6 4

That's your answer.

So:

31 x 11 would be 341

63 x 11 would be 693 and so on.

The only time you run in to a problem is if the middle number is larger than 9 at which point you have to take a further step.

64 x 11 would be worked out like this:

6 _ 4

6 and 4 is 10 so you place the 0 between the 6 and 4

6 0 4

and add the 1 to the first digit, so the 6 would become 7, and your answer then becomes

7 0 4

This second step may take a little bit of practice but once you've got the hang of it you will love amazing people with your little trick.