Video Transcript
Which item is heaviest? Is it the watermelon or the pot of
jam?
In this question, we need to spot
the heaviest item. We know that the word “heaviest”
means that it weighs the most. And If we had a set of balancing
scales like these and we put a watermelon on one end and that pot of jam on the
other, we’d be able to see straight away which item was heaviest. But in this question, we’re not
comparing the masses of these two objects directly like this, even though it’d be
easier. We’re comparing both objects with a
third object. Can you spot it? It’s a bottle of milk. First, we’re going to compare a pot
of jam with the bottle of milk. And then, we’re going to compare
the watermelon with the bottle of milk. And we’re going to use this to help
us work out which is heaviest out of the watermelon and the pot of jam.
So what can we see in the first
picture? Well, in this picture, we’re
comparing the pot of jam with the bottle of milk. And we can see that the end of the
scales that has the bottle of milk on it has gone down. This has meant that the end with
the pot of jam on it has gone up in the air. And this tells us something about
how heavy these items are, doesn’t it? What can we say about the pot of
jam? The pot of jam is lighter than the
bottle of milk.
On the second set of scales, we’re
comparing the watermelon with the bottle of milk. This time, it’s the end with the
watermelon on that’s gone down, and this has lifted the end with the bottle of milk
on it up in the air. What can we say about the
watermelon then? The watermelon is heavier than the
bottle of milk. And we can use what we’ve found to
compare our two objects. Because we know the pot of jam is
lighter than the bottle of milk but the watermelon is heavier than the bottle of
milk, we can tell which item is heaviest. It’s the watermelon. The watermelon must be
heaviest.
