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Length word problems worksheets

A ribbon is 34 inches long and someone cuts 12 inches off it. These free printable worksheets ask that question three ways — two pieces joined, a piece cut off, and how much longer one thing is than another — with the arithmetic kept inside a hundred.

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Length word problems
Length word problems worksheet — Lengths within 100, one unit, free printable with answer key

The answer key prints on a separate page.

What's on this sheet

Both lengths in a question are always in the SAME unit, because that is what the standard asks for. Mixing centimeters and inches in one problem is a conversion question, which is a different skill and a later year; here the only work is the adding or the subtracting.

Why this sheet works

The numbers avoid multiples of ten on purpose. Thirty and twenty is a fact most children already have; thirty-four and twenty-seven is the one worth practising, because that is where the regrouping lives.

How this one works

What is the difference between the two lengths?

Two ropes lie side by side. The longer one measures 45 centimeters and the shorter one measures 19 centimeters.
Two ropes lie side by side. The longer one measures 45 centimeters and the shorter one measures 19 centimeters.
numbers:4519
45 − 19
asked:What is the difference between the two lengths?
45 − 19 =26
26 centimeters
  1. Read it through once. Grabbing the numbers on the first read means choosing an operation before you know the story, and that choice is the only hard part of a word problem.
  2. Now the numbers: 45 and 19. Finding them is not the same as knowing what to do with them — that comes next, and it comes from the story rather than from the numbers.
  3. Something is being taken away or compared. So this one is a subtraction: 45 − 19.
  4. 45 − 19 = 26 centimeters. And answer the question that was ASKED — "What is the difference between the two lengths?" — in centimeters, because the sum on its own is not yet an answer.

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