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Measure Teacher Guide to Measurement

To determine what the difference between the Metric system and US standard measurements are one must look at the characteristics of metric and non-metric standards.

The Metric system, or what is also seen as the European standard measurement system, is based on the decimal unit. The metric units are usually numbers that are formed with prefixes or symbols to determine their unit of measurement. Examples are c for centimeter, m for meter and so on. These are usually preceded by numbers indicating quantity of the metric unit.

There is also in existence the non-metric measurement system that is used mainly in the United Kingdom, known as the imperial system. Such metric units are based on the base units of length, time, and mass. Examples of this system are foot, inch, yard, fathom, league, nautical miles, furlong, acre, etc.

To further illustrate what the difference between the Metric system and US standard measurements are one must also look at the American system or United States customary units or system. These metric units are somewhat similar to the non-metric or imperial units of the British, which is why quite rarely the system is called the "English units". The units are all relatively the same in name such as inch, ounces, and gallon, but are also different in the sense that they have developed into cubic meters, square inches, fluid ounces, dry gallon, etc.

The commonality between US standard measurements and the English system only differs based on the fact that there are certain liquid measures are a little larger or smaller in percentage measurements in the imperial English system of measurements. For example, a British fluid ounce is made of 40 fluid ounces per quart, whereas the US fluid ounce is 32 fluid ounces per quart.

The abbreviated versions of measurements are the standard metric system ideals that the world uses today in many forms and are also somewhat adopted and accepted in the United States. The US standard measurements are also widely used throughout the USA alone however; some units would pretty much be out of place when being referred to on a more global scale. Many would say that there is no way to determine what the difference between the metric system and the US standard measurements are, but the main difference would lie in the overall actual presentation of the measurements, and of course, where exactly one intends to use them.

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