A number of different scenarios in life use negative numbers, like temperatures or if you go over your bank balance.

You might be asked to put some numbers in numerical order.

Sometimes it can help to think of the numbers on a number line:

All the numbers left of 0 are negative and all the numbers to the right of 0 are positive.

For example, let’s say you were asked to put the following numbers in order:

-4, -2.5, -8, 2, 1.5, -3

The lowest number is -8 and the highest is 2. So, going from lowest to highest:

-8, -4, -3, -2.5, 1.5, 2

You might get a question which looks at temperature. Using a number line can help to work out how much a temperature rose or fell.

For example, at 5pm the temperature was 6