Comparing multi digit numbers word problems

Two baseball teams are comparing the number of fans who attended their most recent games. The attendance at the Stanleyville Sliders game was 12,896 fans. The attendance at the Benson Bats game was 12,991 fans. Which team had more fans at their game?

Pause this video and see if you can figure it out.

All right, let's work through this together now. Stanleyville Sliders, they tell us, Stanleyville Sliders game was 12,896, and there's a reason why I'm writing it really large right over there. And then we see at the Benson Bats, the Benson Bats game was 12,991.

So, the way I like to compare numbers is I go to the largest place value first and I compare. Well, let's see. They both have 10,000, so they have the same number of 10,000s. They have the same number of thousands. But then, when we get to hundreds, notice Benson Bats has more hundreds than Stanleyville Sliders. It doesn't matter what happens in the tens and ones place if they have more hundreds over here.

So, Benson Bats, this is a larger number.

So which one has more fans at their game? Benson Bats. And once again, I started at the largest place value, I started at the 10,000s place; it was the same. Then I move on to the next place; it's the same. Then I move on to the next place, but now in the hundreds place, Benson Bats is larger. So, I know that Benson Bats is going to have more fans than Stanleyville Sliders.

I could write this as 12,991 is greater than—I always remember this sign by saying, “Hey, it opens to the larger value.” So this is going to be greater than 12,896. And you could even just think about it, just keep counting: 12,896, 12,897, 12,898, 12,899, 12,900, and then 12,991.

All right, let's do another example.

The table shows the weights of several animals at the zoo. Put the animals in order from lightest to heaviest. The lightest animal should be on the top of the list. You could see it right over here; they give us these three animals. If you're doing this on KH Academy, you would be able to click on these and move them around. But I'm just—I just copied and pasted the actual image.

So let's just think about these weights. So let's look at the—let's first do the same thing: let's first look and actually pause the video and try to solve it on your own.

All right, so if we first look at the thousands place, remember we started at the largest place value. So the thousands place, they all have exactly 2 THS. Now we move on to the hundreds place. Both the polar bear and the crocodile have 200s, but the giraffe only has 100. So the giraffe is the lightest.

And remember, we're ordering from lightest to heaviest because this has the least number of hundreds. They all have the same number of thousands. So then we move to one space to the right to the hundreds, and the giraffe has the least number of hundreds. So the giraffe is going to be the lightest.

Now let's think about between the polar bear and the crocodile. They both have the same number of thousands; they have the same number of hundreds, they have the same number of tens. But notice the polar bear has more ones than the crocodile.

So, the polar bear is heavier. So the crocodile comes next; it's the next heaviest or the next lightest: crocodile. And then the heaviest is the polar bear.

Once again, you start at the largest place value, you compare, they were the same. Then you go to the next largest—oh, there's a difference. So this one must be lighter. It doesn't matter what happens in the tens and ones because it has fewer hundreds than these right over here.

So if you were sorting these around, you would want to put the giraffe first and then you would put the crocodile, and then the polar bear would stay last. So actually, you would just swap these two right over here.

Let's do one more; this is a lot of fun.

All right, let me scroll down a little bit. Pause this video now and see if you can solve this. The table shows the elevations for three mountains in North America. Abby is trying to guess the elevation of University Peak. She knows that it is taller than Mount Massive but not as tall as Mount Alverstone. So it is between Mount Alverstone and Mount Massive.

So it is right over here: taller than Mount Massive, but not as tall as Mount Alverstone.

All right, fill in the blank with an elevation Abby could guess for the elevation of University Peak. Enter a whole number solution.

So we just have to think of a number that is larger than 14,420 and smaller than 14,430. Well, one possibility is we just add one to Mount Massive. So one possibility is 14,429; that would be taller than Mount Massive but not as tall as Mount Alverstone. It still has fewer hundreds than Mount Alverstone.

So that could be—we could write 14,429. We could have also written 14,430, and we could have kept going all the way until 14,499. They all want us to enter whole number solutions, so any of these would have been acceptable answers.