3.OA.3 — Multiplication & Division Word Problems
Practice solving real-world word problems using multiplication and division with equal groups, arrays, and measurement quantities to build fluency within 100.
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Three different problem sets — same skill, same layout, fresh numbers.
Preview — Set A
Read each word problem carefully, then write the multiplication or division equation and solve it.
- 1.A baker puts 6 muffins in each box. She fills 7 boxes. How many muffins does she have in all?
- 2.There are 5 rows of chairs in a classroom. Each row has 8 chairs. How many chairs are there in all?
- 3.A farmer plants 9 seeds in each pot. He has 4 pots. How many seeds does he plant in all?
- 4.A store has 48 apples arranged equally in 6 bags. How many apples are in each bag?
- 5.Each child gets 7 crayons. There are 8 children in the group. How many crayons are needed in all?
- 6.A librarian has 63 books and puts them equally onto 7 shelves. How many books go on each shelf?
- 7.There are 4 tables in the lunchroom. Each table seats 9 students. How many students can sit in all?
- 8.A teacher hands out 54 pencils equally to 6 students. How many pencils does each student get?
- 9.Lily places stickers in an array with 3 rows and 10 columns. How many stickers does she place in all?
- 10.A garden has 7 rows of flowers with 6 flowers in each row. How many flowers are in the garden?
- 11.A pack of juice boxes comes in groups of 8. If there are 5 packs, how many juice boxes are there in all?
- 12.There are 72 marbles shared equally among 8 friends. How many marbles does each friend get?
- 13.A coach arranges players in 6 equal teams. There are 42 players in all. How many players are on each team?
- 14.Each window has 4 panes of glass. The school has 9 windows. How many panes of glass are there in all?
- 15.A kitchen uses 3 eggs for each omelet. The chef makes 8 omelets. How many eggs does the chef use in all?
- 16.There are 45 students going on a field trip. Each van holds 5 students. How many vans are needed?
- 17.A shelf holds 7 books. There are 8 shelves in the library section. How many books are on the shelves in all?
- 18.A farmer collects 64 eggs and places the same number in each of 8 cartons. How many eggs are in each carton?
- 19.There are 10 bags of oranges at the market. Each bag has 7 oranges. How many oranges are there in all?
- 20.A art teacher gives each student 5 paint brushes. There are 9 students in the class. How many paint brushes does she give out in all?
- 21.A box holds 6 granola bars. Marcus buys 9 boxes. How many granola bars does Marcus have in all?
- 22.There are 80 trading cards shared equally among 10 kids. How many cards does each kid receive?
What this worksheet covers
This is a 22-problem word problems for grade 3 multiplication, printed in black and white with the key on page two. What makes this set particular: the problems are written as situations that have to be translated before they can be calculated and answers carry units, and a number without its unit is only half an answer. Problems 8 and 15, for instance, are "A teacher hands out 54 pencils equally to 6 students. How…" and "A kitchen uses 3 eggs for each omelet. The chef makes 8…". It is written against Common Core 3.OA.3 — Operations & Algebraic Thinking, grade 3.
Skills practised
Grade 3 multiplication means multiplication facts to 10 × 10 and 12 × 12, and multiplying by multiples of ten. What a student is asked to do here is multiplication & Division Word Problems. To finish it, a student has to read a situation and choose an operation before computing.
About the word problems format
The 22 story problems each get a full line and an answer rule; problem 8, "A teacher hands out 54 pencils equally to 6 students. How…" is one, and the answer key writes the unit with every answer. Equal groups, arrays and comparison situations all multiply, and recognising them is the skill the drill sheets cannot teach.
Set A, Set B and Set C
Set A is the sheet as it was first published on MathSheetLab, and Sets B and C were derived from it problem by problem: each number became a slot redrawn with the same shape, and every answer was recomputed exactly. Where Set A's problem 12 is "There are 72 marbles shared equally among 8 friends. How…", Set B's is "Sam reads 22 pages in 2 days, reading the same amount each…".
22 story problem(s) drawn from the /custom word-problem bank (grade 3 ranges, ops mul/div) — parameters inferred from 3.OA.3
How to use this worksheet
Give this word problems uninterrupted. At grade 3, multiplication is where procedure and recall have to run at the same time, and 22 problems done in fragments hide which of the two is the problem. If more than a third of the 22 problems come back wrong, stop and step back a grade in multiplication rather than assigning Set B.
One mistake to watch for
Facts are found by skip counting from zero every time. On this grade 3 word problems, problem 15 ("A kitchen uses 3 eggs for each omelet. The chef makes 8…") is the kind of item where it shows.
The table is known as a sequence, not as individual facts, so 7 × 8 means reciting eight sevens.
Drill the facts out of order and use the known-fact strategy: 7 × 8 is 7 × 4 doubled, or 5 × 8 plus 2 × 8.
Other grade 3 multiplication formats
The same skill in the other formats available at this grade.
- Drill — Grade 3 Multiplication Practice, 20 problems
- Timed Drill — 3.OA.1 — Interpreting Products of Whole Numbers, 20 problems
- Missing Number — Finding the Unknown in Multiplication & Division Equations, 22 problems
- Mixed Review — Multiplying by Multiples of 10 — Grade 3 Practice, 20 problems
- Vertical Format — Grade 3 Multiplication Vertical Format, 20 problems
A step either side
The same format one grade down and one grade up — the easier sheet is often the faster fix when this one is not landing.
- Grade 2 Multiplication Word Problems — grade 2, 8 problems
- 4.OA.2 — Multiplicative Comparison Word Problems — grade 4, 22 problems
Word Problems sheets in other grade 3 topics
Print as many copies of this grade 3 multiplication word problems as you need; Sets A, B and C and their keys are six separate PDFs, all free.