ShmoopTube

00:02

Here's an unshmoopy question you may find on an exam somewhere in life...

00:06

Order the following values from least to greatest: 0.55, forty seventy-fifths, 53%, five-ninths

00:16

And here are the potential answers...

00:20

It just wants us to order all the numbers form least to greatest.

00:22

HOW we go about ordering them is less obvious,

00:25

since we can't really compare a fraction to a decimal.

00:28

The easiest way to go about things is to convert everything to a decimal.

00:32

Lucky for us, 0.55 is already a decimal. 53% is the same thing as fifty-three one-hundredths.

00:39

Divide 53 by 100 to get the decimal 0.53. Now for the fractions. First up is five-ninths.

00:47

Dividing 5 by 9 gives us a decimal of 0.555555.

00:53

We saved the best for last: forty seventy-fifths.

00:57

Dividing 40 by 75 gives us 0.53333.

01:03

Let's write out all the numbers side by side in decimal form.

01:06

Order all the numbers from least to greatest and we have...

01:09

0.53, 0.53333, 0.55, 0.55555

01:14

Here are the least to greatest.

01:16

So, E is our answer.

Full Transcript