## What you need to know

Things to remember:

• To compare numbers, we look at the highest place value first, and then move to the right until we find numbers that are different.
• A smaller value means a smaller number.
• A bigger value means a bigger number.

So, how would we decide which is smaller out of 5674 and 5655? We start by comparing the value of the thousands and work from left to right until we find numbers that are different.

$$5\rightarrow Thousands$$

$$5\rightarrow Thousands$$

Both numbers have the same thousands, so we need to move onto the hundreds.

$$6\rightarrow Hundreds$$

$$6\rightarrow Hundreds$$

The hundreds are the same as well, so now we need to move onto the tens.

$$7\rightarrow Tens$$

$$5\rightarrow Tens$$

Now that we have numbers that are different, we can look for the smaller number. The smaller number is 5, so 5655 is smaller than 5674. But we don’t always look for the smallest.

Which is bigger, 4632 or 4832?” We would do the same, but this this time stop at the hundreds. We know that 8 is bigger than 6, so 4832 is bigger than 4632.

## KS2 SATs Flash Cards

• Over 100 KS2 Exam Style questions and answers
• Arithmetic and reasoning sections covered
• Exact same format as the exam

## Example Questions

$$5\rightarrow Thousands$$

$$5\rightarrow Thousands$$

Both numbers have the same thousands, so we need to move onto the hundreds.

$$4\rightarrow Hundreds$$

$$4\rightarrow Hundreds$$

The hundreds are the same as well, so now we need to move onto the tens.

$$6\rightarrow Tens$$

$$7\rightarrow Tens$$

We are looking for the biggest, and 7 is bigger than 6. 5477 is bigger than 5467.

$$2\rightarrow Thousands$$

$$2\rightarrow Thousands$$

Both numbers have the same thousands, so we need to move onto the hundreds.

$$3\rightarrow Hundreds$$

$$2\rightarrow Hundreds$$

We are looking for the smallest, and 2 is smaller than 3. 2267 is smaller than 2367.