Year 8 – Representations: from clay to silicon Solutions to learner worksheet

Lesson 5 – Large quantities

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Compare and convert: solutions

Problem 1 Comparing sizes
In the table below, you can see the name, size, and type of six files.

In the blank column to the right, write the sizes of the files in order from the smallest to
the largest one.

Name ▼ Size Type Size

(order: smaller to larger)

book.pdf document 23.0MB 23KB

book.txt text 720KB 720KB

logo.png image 23KB 1.6MB

party.mkv video 2.0GB 2.3MB

picture.jpg image 2.3MB 23MB

song.mp3 audio 1.6MB 2.0GB

Problem 2 Converting to bits

Nowadays, a standard hard disk has a capacity of 1TB.
‘T’ stands for the prefix ‘tera-’ and uppercase ‘B’ means ‘bytes’, so 1TB is 1 terabyte.

Questions Your answers ▿

How many bytes is 1 terabyte? Number of bytes in 1 terabyte: 1 trillion bytes

1 terabyte = 1 trillion bytes

How many bits is 1 terabyte?
Hint: Start from your answer to the
previous question.
Number of bits in 1 terabyte: 8 trillion bits
1 trillion bytes =
1 trillion groups of 8 bits =

Page 1 Last updated: 09-09-19

Year 8 – Representations: from clay to silicon Solutions to learner worksheet
Lesson 5 – Large quantities
Save a copy

8 trillion bits

Problem 3 How many will fit?

You really enjoy taking pictures with your mobile phone. You purchase a 16GB memory
card and you want to know how many pictures you can store on the memory card. The
size of each individual picture is approximately 4MB.

Questions Your answers ▿

The card’s capacity is expressed in 16GB (gigabytes) expressed in MB: 16,000MB

GB (gigabytes). A picture’s size is
expressed in MB (megabytes). You 1GB = 1,000MB
will need to convert.
16GB = 16,000MB
How many MB is 16GB?
(Convert 16 gigabytes to
megabytes.)

How many pictures can be stored Number of pictures: 4,000 pictures

on your memory card?
How many 4 megabyte pictures can fit into
16,000 megabytes?

16,000 / 4 = 4,000 pictures

Page 2 Last updated: 09-09-19

Year 8 – Representations: from clay to silicon Solutions to learner worksheet
Lesson 5 – Large quantities
Save a copy

Explorer task How long will it take?

An internet connection can be called ‘superfast’ if it can transfer over 24Mb per second
(that’s 24 megabits per second).

You’d like to know how long it would take to transfer a file with a size of 3GB (gigabytes)
using a superfast connection.

Questions Your answers ▿

How many MB (megabytes) are Transfer speed in MB per second: 3MB/second

transferred in a second?

(Convert 24 megabits to
How many groups of 8 bits fit in 24Mb?
megabytes.)
24 megabits / 8 = 3 megabytes.

What is the size of the 3GB file in 3GB (gigabytes) expressed in MB: 3,000MB
MB (megabytes)?

(Convert 3 gigabytes to
1GB = 1,000MB
megabytes.) 3GB = 3,000MB

How long would the file transfer Transfer time (in seconds): 1,000 seconds
take?
3 megabytes are transferred in 1 second.
How many seconds does it take to transfer
3,000 megabytes?

3,000 / 3 = 1,000 seconds

(approx. 17 mins)

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This resource is licensed under the Open Government Licence, version 3. For more information on this
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