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Positive and negative number word problems worksheets

A negative number is easiest to believe when it is a reading on something: a thermometer, a depth gauge, a balance. These free printable worksheets keep every question on one of four scales, so the sign is a fact about the world rather than a rule to remember.

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Positive and negative number word problems
Positive and negative number word problems worksheet — Temperature, depth, balance, free printable with answer key

The answer key prints on a separate page.

What's on this sheet

Four readings and four situations. A scale reads something and then rises or falls, and the question is the new reading. Two readings are given and the question is the gap between them, which is never negative however the two are ordered. A reading falls by the same amount several times over. And one fall is split into equal stages.

Why this sheet works

Each scale keeps to what it could really show — a depth is never positive, a thermometer stops at −40 — because a submarine that surfaces mid-dive or a −96°C morning turns a signed-number question into a puzzle about the story. This is 7.NS.A.1 and 7.NS.A.3.

How this one works

One question off this sheet, worked a step at a time — with a sentence saying what just happened and why.

Positive and negative number word problems, step by step

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