If you're seeing this message, it means we're having trouble loading external resources on our website.

If you're behind a web filter, please make sure that the domains *.kastatic.org and *.kasandbox.org are unblocked.

Main content

Multiplication word problem: carrots

Created by Sal Khan.

Want to join the conversation?

Video transcript

Toby is a farmer. He plants 12 rows of carrots in a field. Each row has 6 carrots. How many carrots did Toby plant? So let's try to visualize this thing. So they tell us each row has 6 carrots. So let's try to visualize a row. So that's 1 carrot, that's 2 carrots, that's 3 carrots, that's 4 carrots, that's 5 carrots, and that's 6 carrots. And I can even do, just so it looks nice, the little leafy part of the carrots. So we can visualize these as carrots. So that's 1 row of carrots. They tell us each row has 6 carrots. Now, there're 12 of these. He plants 12 rows of carrots. Let me see if I can copy and paste this. So copy and paste. So that's 2 rows. I want to make sure I have enough space. 2 rows. That's 3 rows. That's 4 rows. This is 5 rows. This is 6 rows. And actually, I can just copy and paste the whole thing. This is 6 rows. I just need to double that to get to 12 rows. So let me do that. So copy and paste. There you go. So there's 12 rows right over here. And let's number this. So they tell us each row has 6 carrots-- 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. They tell us he plants a total of 12 rows-- 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12. How many carrots did Toby plant? Well, you could do this exercise and then try to count all of these carrots. But that seems a little bit crazy. These are already a lot of carrots. And especially if these were even larger numbers, it would take you forever to count it. Luckily for us, we have multiplication as a tool that we can use. So if you have 12 rows and each of those rows have 6, this is really 12 times 6. You're going to have 12 rows. In each of those, you have 6 carrots. So you could say you have 6 carrots 12 times. So it's going to be 12 times 6. If you remember your multiplication tables up to 12, you'll remember that 12 times 6 is 72. So he has 72 carrots. Even if you only remember-- well, I'll just leave it there. If you remember your multiplication-- which you should, because that is one of the things in life that will have long-lasting benefits-- it's 72 carrots.