Which property is demonstrated by a × b = b × a?

• A. Commutative property
• B. Distributive property
• C. Transitive property
• D. Reciprocal property

Answer: (A)

This shows that changing the order of the factors doesn’t change the product. That idea is the commutative property of multiplication: a × b equals b × a for any numbers a and b (for example, 6 × 9 = 9 × 6 = 54). The other options describe different ideas: the distributive property relates multiplication to addition (a × (b + c) = a × b + a × c), the transitive property deals with chains of equality (if a = b and b = c then a = c), and the reciprocal property concerns multiplying a number by its reciprocal to get 1.