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Metric conversion is one of the easiest things to do with a little assistance. Remember the following mnemonic device. "Kids Have Dogs But Dogs Cost Money".

  • Kids - Kilo
  • Have - Hecto
  • Dogs - Deca
  • But - Base (Meter/Gram/Liter)
  • Dogs - Deci
  • Cost - Centi
  • Money - Milli

If you go down the list (i.e. 10 Kilograms to grams), you move the decimal point to the right as many places as you're going down the list. Grams (Base) is three positions away from Kilogram, therefore we add 3 zeros to the right of our number. 10Kg is 10,000 grams.If we're moving the opposite direction, up the list, we move our decimal point to the left starting from the right. Let our example be 1500 grams to kilograms.

Unlike before, we cannot just add zeros to the left of this problem. Otherwise you'd end up with the .00015 Kg in 1500 grams, you just made your answer smaller than the original number.In this situation we need to take into account that the numbers present (1500) are our zeros for all intents and purposes. As before, we're moving 3 places, up! Therefore, we count three places from the right most number and move left. We end up with 1.500 (insignificant digits included).

In summary:

  • When moving down the ladder, we just simply add zeros to every whole number we're moving down. (Note this does not work for decimal conversions, you'll need to follow the same instructions for moving up the list and start with the numbers given considered as zeros already present)
  • When moving up the ladder we simply consider the numbers present as zeros, and count over and add zeros if necessary.
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9y ago

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