Maths Essentials, Unit 4, Lesson 4 of 5

Standard form

GCSE Maths, Powers, roots and standard form, 20 minutes

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Write very large and very small numbers as A × 10ⁿ, change them back, and compare them.

What you will learn

  • Write a number in standard form
  • Change standard form to an ordinary number
  • Order numbers in standard form
  • Correct a number that is not in standard form

A × 10ⁿ

Standard form is a number from 1 up to (not including) 10, times a power of 10.

  1. 4,560,000 = 4.56 × 1,000,000 = 4.56 × 10⁶
  2. 0.00072 = 7.2 ÷ 10,000 = 7.2 × 10⁻⁴

Big numbers have a positive power; numbers less than 1 have a negative power. The power counts how many places the decimal point moves.

The rest of this lesson and its 7 practice questions are locked.

In this lesson

  1. A × 10ⁿ
  2. Not quite standard form

7 practice questions, marked as you go; about 20 minutes in all.

In this unit: Powers, roots and standard form

Squares, cubes and roots, the laws of indices (negative and fractional too), and very large and very small numbers in standard form.

All of Powers, roots and standard form

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