Unit 17 Section 2 : Conversion between metric units
In this section we will learn how to convert between metric units of length, mass and capacity.
The units we will be working with are:
| Length | kilometre (km), metre (m), centimetre (cm), millimetre (mm) |
| Mass | tonne (t), kilogram (kg), gram (g) |
| Capacity | litre (l), millilitre (ml) |
You might have noticed that some of the units have the same prefixes, like
kilo-,
milli- and
centi-.
| kilo- means thousand, as in "one kilometre is a thousand metres" |
| milli- means thousandth, as in "one millimetre is a thousandth of a metre" |
| centi- means hundredth, as in "one centimetre is a hundredth of a metre" |
For any two metric units, you convert from the larger unit to the smaller by multiplying by one of 10, 100, 1000 etc. The reverse is also true; you can convert from a smaller unit to a larger by dividing by one of 10, 100, 1000 etc. Have a look at the examples below to see how this works:
It is also useful to know that 1 cm3 = 1 millilitre (ml).
Practice Questions
Work out the answer to each of these questions then click on the button marked
to see whether you are correct.
Practice Question 1 (a) Convert 150 cm into metres. 
(b) Convert 360 mm into metres. (c) Convert 3.6 tonnes into kilograms. (d) Convert 62 ml into litres (e) Convert 2100 cm3 into litres
Practice Question 2 John adds 250 ml of water to a jug that already contains 1.2 litres of water. How much water is now in the jug?
Exercises
Work out the answers to the questions below and fill in the boxes. Click on the
button to find out whether you have answered correctly. If you are right then
will appear and you should move on to the next question. If
appears then your answer is wrong. Click on
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Question 1 Change the following lengths into mm:
| (a) 4 cm | mm   |
| (b) 7 cm | mm |
| (c) 26 cm | mm |
| (d) 835 cm | mm |
| (e) 6.2 cm | mm |
| (f) 14.7 cm | mm |
| (g) 9.25 cm | mm |
| (h) 0.04 cm | mm |
Change the following lengths into cm:
| (i) 60 mm | cm |
| (j) 80 mm | cm |
| (k) 340 mm | cm |
| (l) 9450 mm | cm |
| (m) 87 mm | cm |
| (n) 262 mm | cm |
| (o) 67.9 mm | cm |
| (p) 6 mm | cm |
Question 2 Change the following lengths into cm:
| (a) 7 m | cm |
| (b) 18 m | cm |
| (c) 36 m | cm |
| (d) 904 m | cm |
| (e) 4.3 m | cm |
| (f) 53.9 m | cm |
| (g) 28.38 m | cm |
| (h) 0.09 m | cm |
Change the following lengths into m:
| (i) 800 cm | m |
| (j) 500 cm | m |
| (k) 760 cm | m |
| (l) 2150 cm | m |
| (m) 365 cm | m |
| (n) 57 cm | m |
| (o) 77.6 cm | m |
| (p) 6 cm | m |
Question 3 Change the following lengths into m:
| (a) 5 km | m |
| (b) 11 km | m |
| (c) 63 km | m |
| (d) 423 km | m |
| (e) 7.4 km | m |
| (f) 2.56 km | m |
| (g) 14.321 km | m |
| (h) 0.07 km | m |
Change the following lengths into km:
| (i) 6000 m | km |
| (j) 17000 m | km |
| (k) 53000 m | km |
| (l) 4750 m | km |
| (m) 807 m | km |
| (n) 62 m | km |
| (o) 3 m | km |
| (p) 29.3 m | km |
Question 4 Change the following masses into g:
| (a) 6 kg | g |
| (b) 8 kg | g |
| (c) 15 kg | g |
| (d) 92 kg | g |
| (e) 1.7 kg | g |
| (f) 5.47 kg | g |
| (g) 2.925 kg | g |
| (h) 0.004 kg | g |
Change the following masses into kg:
| (i) 3000 g | kg |
| (j) 40000 g | kg |
| (k) 8340 g | kg |
| (l) 29750 g | kg |
| (m) 237 g | kg |
| (n) 52 g | kg |
| (o) 9 g | kg |
| (p) 3.6 g | kg |
Question 5
| (a) Convert 320 mm into metres | m |
| (b) Convert 6420 mm into metres | m |
| (c) Convert 642 mm into metres | m |
| (d) Convert 888 cm into metres | m |
| (e) Convert 224 cm into millimetres | mm |
| (f) Convert 45 m into millimetres | mm |
| (g) Convert 320 m into centimetres | cm |
| (h) Convert 8.73 m into millimetres | mm |
Question 6 Convert the following masses to kg:
| (a) 8.2 tonnes | kg |
| (b) 160 tonnes | kg |
| (c) 88 g | kg |
| (d) 3470 g | kg |
Question 7 Convert the following masses to g:
| (a) 3.6 kg | g |
| (b) 3.7 tonnes | g |
| (c) 8000 milligrams | g |
| (d) 620 milligrams | g |
Question 8 Convert the following to ml:
| (a) 0.25 litres | ml |
| (b) 22 litres | ml |
| (c) 0.75 litres | ml |
| (d) 450 cm3 | ml |
Question 9 Convert the following to litres:
| (a) 4740 ml | litres |
| (b) 64 ml | litres |
| (c) 300 ml | litres |
| (d) 3600 cm3 | litres |
Question 10 A cake recipe requires 0.25 kg of flour. Rachel has 550 grams of flour.
How much flour will she have left when she has made the cake? (a) Give your answer in grams: g (b) Give your answer in kilograms: kg Question 11 A chemistry teacher requires 250 milligrams of a chemical for an experiment. He has 30 grams of the chemical.
How many times can he carry out the experiment? times Question 12 A bottle contains 1.5 litres of cola. Hannah drinks 300 ml of the cola and then Ben drinks 450 ml.
How much of the cola is left? (a) Give your answer in ml: ml (b) Give your answer in litres: litres Question 13 Emma estimates that the mass of one sweet is 20 grams. A packet contains 0.36 kg of these sweets.
How many sweets would you expect to find in the packet? sweets
You have now completed Unit 17 Section 2
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