PLAYER A
SUPER GENIUS
Level ***
Assume that there are 20,000 runners in the New York City Marathon. Each runner
runs a distance of 26 miles. If you add together the total number of miles for all
runners, how many times around the globe would the marathon runners have gone?
Consider the circumference of the Earth to be 2.5  10 4 miles.
GENIUS
Level **
The half-life of Uranium 234 is 2.5 x 105 years and the half-life of Plutonium is 8.0
x 107 years. How many times greater is the half-life of Plutonium than Uranium
234? Write your answer in scientific notation and standard form.
ADVANCED
Simplify each expression.
Level **
1)
 33 y 5 x 2 


5
 3x 
6
 3x y
4
2)
6
 4 xy

3 2
3)
 (17bn3 )(3n 2b 6 ) 


51n5b 7


3
BALLER
Level **
Suppose there are 5 x 106 bacteria in every 2 liters of water. How many bacteria are
there in 5 liters of water? Write your answer in scientific notation and standard
form.
PROFICIENT
Evaluate each expression. Write your answer in scientific notation.
Level **
1) (4  10 3 )(3  10 6 )
NOVICE
2)
9.9  10 2
2.4  10 3
Simplify each expression.
Level *
1)
x 4 y 3  x 5 y 9
2)
3a 
3 4
3)
 15m 6 n 3
3mn 2
ROOKIE
Write each number in scientific notation.
Level *
1) 854,000,000,000
2) 0.000008923
3) 468.92
START HERE
Write each number in standard form.
Level *
1) 3.2  10 6
2) 5.37  103
3) 6.245  10 0
PLAYER A’s (ANSWERS)
SUPER GENIUS
Level ***
The total miles run is 20,000 x 26 = 520,000 miles (5.2 x 105 miles).
Divide the total miles by the circumference.
2.08 x 101 times (The runners, together, ran around the globe 20.8 times)
GENIUS
Level **
The half-life of Plutonium is 3.2 x 102 or 320 times greater than Uranium 234.
ADVANCED
Level **
1)
312 y 30
x18
2)
y6
144 x10
3) 1
BALLER
Level **
1.25  107 bacteria in 5 liters of water (12,500,000 bacteria).
PROFICIENT
Level **
1) 1.2  108
2)
4.125  105
NOVICE
Level *
1)
y12
x
2)
81
a12
3)
 5m5
n5
ROOKIE
Level *
1) 8.54  1011
2) 8.923  106
3) 4.6892  102
1) 3,200,000
2) 0.00537
3) 6.245
START HERE
Level *
PLAYER B
SUPER GENIUS
Level ***
Light travels at a speed of 1.86 x 105 miles per second. If a "light year" is the
distance that light travels in one year, how many miles are in a light year? Write
your answer in scientific notation.
GENIUS
Level **
One of the fastest supercomputers in the world is NEC's Earth Simulator, which
operates at a top-end of 40 teraflops (forty trillion operations per second). How
long would it take this computer to perform 250 million calculations? Write your
answer in scientific notation and standard form.
ADVANCED
Simplify each expression.
Level **
1)
BALLER
 x yz
4
5

8 7 3
x y z
2
2)
42 y 3 x5
23 x 2 y 2
 9a 2b 3 
3) 
3 2 
 27 ab c 
2
Level **
A speck of dust in an electron microscope is 1.2 x 102 millimeters wide. The image
in the microscope is 500 times larger than the actual size of the speck of dust. How
many millimeters wide is the actual speck of dust? Write your answer in scientific
notation and standard form.
PROFICIENT
Evaluate each expression. Write your answer in scientific notation.
Level **
1) (5.6  102 )( 2.2  107 )
NOVICE
2)
7  104
2.5  10 6
Simplify each expression.
Level *
1)
ab 
 4 3
2)
9m6 n 7
15m8n6
3)
2 x 3 y  12 xy5
ROOKIE
Write each number in scientific notation.
Level *
1) .024879
2) Eight Billion
3) 722.23
START HERE
Write each number in standard form.
Level *
1) 5.25  10 4
2) 7.123  109
3) 4.3  101
PLAYER B’s (ANSWERS)
SUPER GENIUS
Level ***
Determine the number of seconds in a year: (60·60·24·365) = 31,536,000 seconds
in a year (3.1536 x 107 seconds)
Multiply the speed of light by the number of seconds: 5.865696 x 1012 miles
GENIUS
Level **
Forty trillion = 4.0 x 1013
250 million = 2.5 x 108
Divide calculations by operation speed: 6.25 x 10-6 seconds to perform 250
million calculations (0.00000625 of a second)
ADVANCED
Level **
1)
x18 y 27
z6
2)
2x 7
y5
3)
a 2c 4
9b12
BALLER
Level **
The actual speck of dust is 2.4 x 10-1 or 0.24 millimeters wide.
PROFICIENT
Level **
1) 1.232  106
2)
2.8  102
NOVICE
Level *
1)
b12
a3
2)
3
5m 2 n13
3)
24 y 6
x2
ROOKIE
Level *
1) 2.4879  102
2) 8 109
1) 0.000525
2) 7,123,000,000
3) 7.2223  102
START HERE
Level *
3) 43