Video Transcript
Arrange the following set of
numbers in ascending order: negative three and three-tenths, negative 3.61, and
negative 3.5.
Ascending order is least to
greatest, and we have three values. All three of the values are
negative. Two of them are decimal numbers,
and one is a mixed number. We have two choices. We could convert the mixed number
to a decimal, or we could convert both of the decimal numbers into mixed
numbers. Since two of the values are already
in decimal form, let’s go ahead and convert this mixed number to a decimal
number.
We know that the negative three
will remain the whole-number portion. But how do we convert three-tenths
to a decimal? Since this is a fraction out of 10,
that’s a really simple procedure. We put a three in the tenths place
so that we have negative 3.3. At this point, we have to be really
careful because we’re ordering negative values. And when we order negative values,
the least value will be the one that’s the furthest away from zero. And we know that the distance from
zero is the absolute value of our number.
That means negative 3.61 is 3.61
units away from zero to the left. And it means that negative 3.5 is
3.5 units away from zero to the left. Negative 3.5 is closer to zero than
negative 3.61, and negative 3.3 is the closest to zero of the three values. And that means to arrange them from
least to greatest, we would list negative 3.61, negative 3.5, and then negative
3.3. However, for the final answer, it’s
best to take negative 3.3 and put it back in the format we were given: negative
three and three-tenths.
