Video Transcript
Choose the correct symbol to
compare the given numbers. 246 what 264.
Here are two three-digit numbers
that we need to compare here. And we need to choose the correct
symbol to write in between them to compare them. Do you remember what our three
symbols mean? The widest part of these arrow-like
symbols always points towards the greater number. So with this symbol, the greater
number’s going to come first. This symbol means is greater
than.
Our second
number
[symbol] is facing the opposite direction, so we can see the smaller end of the
arrow comes first.
This helps us remember that the
first number is less than the second. And, of course, when there is no
wide end or thin end and both lines are exactly the same distance apart, this is the
equals sign. And it means that they’re both the
same.
Now that we’ve reminded ourselves
about the symbols, let’s compare the numbers. Do you remember which part of the
number we need to compare first? It’s the part with the greatest
value. There’s no point looking at the
ones first and deciding that one lot of ones is greater than the other because the
number of hundreds might be different. The digits with the greatest value
are the hundreds digits. But we can see that both numbers
have a two in the hundreds place. They’re both 200 and something. So far, the numbers are equal,
aren’t they?
We need to keep comparing, so we
need to look at the digit that has the next greatest value. And this is the tens digit. Our first number has a four in the
tens place, which is worth 40. And our second number has a six in
the tens place, which is worth 60. Now that we’ve got two different
digits to look at, we can see straightaway which number is larger and which is
smaller. Four 10s are less than six 10s. So our first number is less than
our second, and we need to use the less than symbol. Although the number of hundreds in
our numbers was the same, the number of tens was different. And we used this to compare our
numbers together. 246 is less than 264. And so the correct symbol we need
to use to compare the numbers is the one that means is less than.
