Free · Grades 3–4 · 4 sections · 20 questions

Decimals unit test

Place value, comparing, arithmetic — in the order the misconceptions appear.

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Ready to printDecimals unit test
Decimals unit test — printable test paper

The answer key prints on a separate page.

What's on this test

Almost every decimal error traces back to one belief: that a longer number is a bigger number. It is true for whole numbers and false the moment a point appears, which is why 0.45 gets called bigger than 0.7. Place value comes first here and comparing comes second so the belief is met head-on before any arithmetic depends on it.

How the paper is put together

The arithmetic section then keeps the points aligned, which is the same idea again in a different position — a column sum only works when tenths sit above tenths. A child who lines up the right-hand edges instead has not learned a bad habit; they have carried over a good one from whole numbers, where the right-hand edge was the units column.