How many micrograms are in one milligram?

How many micrograms are in one milligram?

• A. 100
• B. 1000
• C. 10
• D. 1

Answer: (B)

Understanding metric prefixes helps here. Micrograms are millionths of a gram, while milligrams are thousandths of a gram. That means there are 1000 micrograms in one milligram. You can see this by converting to grams: 1 mg = 0.001 g, and there are 1,000,000 micrograms in a gram, so 0.001 g equals 0.001 × 1,000,000 mcg = 1000 mcg. A quick check: moving the decimal three places to the right converts mg to mcg, so 1.0 mg becomes 1000 mcg. The other values would correspond to smaller amounts (0.1 mg, 0.01 mg, or 0.001 mg), not 1 mg.

Understanding metric prefixes helps here. Micrograms are millionths of a gram, while milligrams are thousandths of a gram. That means there are 1000 micrograms in one milligram. You can see this by converting to grams: 1 mg = 0.001 g, and there are 1,000,000 micrograms in a gram, so 0.001 g equals 0.001 × 1,000,000 mcg = 1000 mcg. A quick check: moving the decimal three places to the right converts mg to mcg, so 1.0 mg becomes 1000 mcg. The other values would correspond to smaller amounts (0.1 mg, 0.01 mg, or 0.001 mg), not 1 mg.