Absolute value is a distance, and a distance is never negative. These free printable worksheets ask for the value of expressions written between the two bars, including ones where there is arithmetic to do inside first.
If they get stuck
The answer key prints on a separate page.
|−7| = 7 because −7 sits seven steps from zero, and the direction is not part of the question. Introduced as "drop the minus sign" it is a trick with no meaning attached, and children taught that way write |3 − 8| = 5 correctly and |−3| − 8 = 5 incorrectly, having no idea the two are different.
The bars behave like brackets. Whatever is inside gets worked out first, and only then does the sign get dropped, which is why some questions here have a subtraction inside them. That is the case where the distance reading actually earns its keep: |3 − 8| is how far apart 3 and 8 are.
One question from a sheet like this one, worked a step at a time — with a sentence saying what just happened and why.
Absolute value, step by step