Video Transcript
What is the place value of the
eight in 81,374?
This question gives us a five-digit
number made up, unsurprisingly, of five digits. And we’re asked what the place
value of one of them is, and that’s the digit eight. We know that place value is the
value given to different digits based on their position or place in a number. They may be worth ones or
hundreds. It all depends on their
position. And so this question is really
asking us, what’s the value of the place where the digit eight is sitting in this
number?
Probably the most useful thing we
could do to help us answer this question is to put this number into a place value
grid. And as we write each digit, we can
think about what they’re worth. We know that the value of each
place in a number is greater as we move from right to left. So if we look at where the eight is
in our number, perhaps the first thing we could say is that it’s in the place with
the greatest value in this five-digit number. But what is this place worth?
We know that the digit four is in
the place with the least value. It’s in the ones place. Then comes the tens, the hundreds,
the thousands, and the fifth column along to the left. Well, this column is going to
behave just the same as all the others. It’s going to be 10 times as great
as the last column. And because the last column is
thousands, we know the digit eight is in the ten thousands place. The place value of the eight in
81,374 is ten thousands.
