Question

Which of the following would be appropriate to measure in centimeters? the distance between Philadelphia and New York City, the length of a paperclip, the height of a standard ceiling, the yearly increase in a child's height or the width of a swimming pool

Answer 1

To measure the length or height of something which is a little smaller we prefer to use centimeters.

Lets look at each of the options one by one.

1. Distance between Philadelphia and New York , it is roughly about 94.1 miles which will be way too big of a number if converted in to centimeters (it will be 15000000 cm).

2. Length of a paperclip, this is something that is a considerable length and can be measured in centimeters. Usually a paper clip measures around 3-4 centimeters.

3. Height of a standard ceiling, while constructing something we measure height or length or the width of a floor in feet.

4. Yearly increase in a child's height, that can be measured in centimeters but often we use inches.

5. Width of a swimming pool is also conventionally measured in feet.

So, it is the length of a paperclip and the yearly increase in a height of a child are two things that can be measured in centimeters.