Long Division

So, we have zero on top of two and underneath. Then treating each column separately,  we subtract 253 by whatever number B is underneath 2 which in this case is zero. That gives 253 again. Now you may think we have not gotten anywhere but in long division, we have progressed. We are done with the first column so now it's time to move to the second column.

Now, for any column, you want to take care of the number in that column and any numbers to the left of it. In this case, the number in the second column is 5 but 2 still remains in the first column so you have 25 to work with in the second column. So, how many times can 5 divide into 25? The answer is 5, so A for the second column is 5 and you write 5 on top. (where the blue question-mark is). At the bottom, B is 5 times 5 which is 25 so you write 25 at the bottom.

now treating each column separately, we subtract 25 from 253. The first column is zero and so is the second column. That leaves the third column as three. Now we want to divide 5 into 3. However, since 3 is smaller than 5, 5 can divide into 3 zero times. So, we again write zero on top of the roof in the third column and at the bottom write B = 5 x 0 = 0. That means the remainder is 3 or we can keep the long division going.

So, for this long division, 253 divided by 5 is 50 with the remainder of 3.