Conversions Cheat Sheet

Before we get started.

There are three things that you have to have memorized in order to work out conversion problems.

1. The decimal in a whole number always goes at the end of the number. 2. King Henry Doesn’t Usually Drink Chocolate Milk (for metric conversions) 3. Building a Gallon Chart (from fifth grade)

Customary Chart

King Henry Doesn’t Usually Drink Chocolate Milk

You actually write: K, H, D, U, D, C, M

Each of the letters stands for: Kilo. Hecto, Deka, Unit, Deci, Centi, Milli

Make sure to label each of the letters: Km, Hm, Dkm, m, dm, cm, mm

Basically, you write what is shown below…

***The m, l, g underneath the U stands for meters, liters, and grams. These are called your “base units” and anytime you see those words in a problem you know that you need to use this metric chart.***

These problems are always a matter of moving from one unit to another. Look at the problem below…

Problem Katie has 50kg of paper that she needs to sell. If each student can only have 10,000g of paper to sell, how many grams of paper does Katie need to give to someone else to sell for her? The first thing that you must do to solve the problem is convert 50kg into grams (g). To do this you put an “x” over the K and jump over to the U (for grams).

It should look like this.

You have to remember that the decimal in a whole number always goes at the end of the number.

When you move the decimal in 50. three times to the right, you get 50,000g.

When you subtract 10,000g from 50,000g you end up with 40,000g. So Katie needs to give away 40,000g to friends to sell for her. The next type of conversions that we are going to review will be the gallon chart. Your gallon chart should look something like this.

This chart tells you that there are 4 quarts in a gallon, 8 pints in a gallon, and 16 cups in a gallon. The only additional information that will be added from last years chart will be that there are eight ounces in a cup. (This is fluid ounces, not to be confused with 16oz. in 1 lb).

Basic question

28c = ______g

You will need to remember the rule “Small Bossy Diva” and “Big Smelly Mess”

This phrase simply tells you that when you go from a small unit to a big unit you have to divide. When you go from a big unit to a small unit you must multiply.

1. You always start with the unit that has a number beside of it. Since we are converting cups into gallons, we must divide.

2. We will divide the number that is in the problem which is 28 by 16. The reason that we use 16 is because there are 16 cups in a gallon. The division looks like this.

1.75 16) 28.00 - 16 120 - 112 80 -80 0 We know that 28 cups equals 1.75 gallons.

Advanced Question

Which of the following quantities is the least?

A. 6 pints equals 3 quarts B. 12 quarts equals 12 quarts C. 1 gallon equals 4 quarts D. 2.5 gallons equals 10 quarts

To solve this problem, you must convert all of the following quantities into the same unit of measure. In other words, you have to have everything in pints, quarts, gallons, or cups.

I am going to convert everything into quarts.

A. To convert 6 pints into quarts, I must divide since I am going from bigger to smaller units. I will divide 6 by 2 and get three. I divided by two because there are two pints in every quart.

B. Already converted into quarts

C. To convert 1 gallon into quarts, you will multiply 4X1 to get four. We have to multiply because our units are going from big to small. We multiplied by four because there are four quarts in a gallon.

D. To convert 2.5 gallons into quarts, you multiply 4x2.5= 10. We have to multiply because our units are going from big to small. We multiplied by four because there are four quarts in a gallon.

We see that the answer is A because 6 pints is the least amount given. Be aware that they could have asked for the greatest amount as well.