Order Three Decimals

Free interactive math game: Order Three Decimals — Smallest or largest. Part of the Decimal Fractions category on MathKite.

Example problems

Taken from the generator that powers this exercise. A fresh set appears every time the page is opened, and the printable worksheet holds ten of them.

  1. Which decimal is the largest? 0.5, 0.74, 0.47
  2. Which decimal is the smallest? 0.67, 0.7, 0.23
  3. Which decimal is the smallest? 0.13, 0.71, 0.82
  4. Which decimal is the largest? 0.76, 0.58, 0.72

About this exercise

Putting three decimals into order.

How to solve it

Pad them all to the same number of decimal places, then compare them digit by digit from the left.

Worked example

0.5, 0.45 and 0.504 become 0.500, 0.450 and 0.504, so the order is 0.45, 0.5, 0.504.

Common mistake

Sorting by length. Padding with zeros removes the illusion that longer means larger.