35 Roman Numerals flashcards, ready to print. $2.99, once.
One payment buys the deck twice over: the printable PDF and every card unlocked to play online. Eight to a sheet, cut guides on every card, and the answer sheet already mirrored so a long-edge duplex print puts every answer on the back of its own question. 15 pages, US Letter, black and white. Grades 3–8.
Both halves, one price. A single deck printable is $1.29 on the store shelf and unlocking a deck to play is $2.99 — $4.28 for the two. Here they are the same $2.99 purchase, so you save $1.29 — and there is one receipt to keep instead of two.
Includes every card unlocked to play online — $4.28 bought separately. One payment, no account, no renewal.
Same price, opens in the editor. Reword any card, add your own, print it your way.
Not sure yet? The first 30 cards of this deck are free to play and free to print, right now, with no email. Play the free 30 · Print the free 30
15 pages, and the backs are already right
Every front sheet is followed by its own back sheet with the rows reversed. Print double-sided, flip on the long edge, and answer number 7 is behind question number 7. Print a deck you built yourself, flip on the short edge, and every answer lands on the wrong card — which nobody finds out until sixty cards have been cut apart.
- 35 cards — counted out of the file, not rounded up
- Eight cards a sheet, with cut guides
- US Letter PDF, black and white, photocopier-friendly
- Print a set per student, every class, every year
35 cards. There are exactly seven Roman numeral symbols and exactly six standard subtractive pairs, so the closed part of the topic is 13 facts; the rest of the deck is the eight formation rules, the clock-face exception, and twelve worked conversions chosen to exercise every rule. Adding a hundred more conversions would test the same thirteen facts over and over, so the deck stops.
Every card here is cited to two independent sources
Two different organisations — not a standards body and a website reprinting it — and a script refuses the card if the two disagree, so the check runs on every card rather than on the ones somebody remembered to look at. A second specialist then re-verified this deck from sources of their own, without reading our citations first. A further 5,420 cards across 30 other decks were read end to end by a subject specialist instead, and we say which is which on every deck rather than averaging the two into one flattering word.
What 35 printed cards do that a screen does not
A phone deck is one card at a time. A printed deck is a pile you can split: the ones you know, the ones you nearly know, and the ones you keep missing. That third pile is the entire study session, and it is the thing a scrolling app hides from you.
- Print once, use all year. The licence covers a set per student, every class, every year.
- No device, no login, no data. Works in a cover lesson, on a bus, or at a kitchen table. Grades 3–8, filed under maths.
- Change what you disagree with. Every card loads into the free maker on this site. Reword it, drop it, add your own, reprint.
Here are the first 30 cards, written out
Check them against your own textbook before you spend anything. If you do not like how they are worded, do not buy the deck — that is what this list is for.
- I
- 1 — the unit; repeats up to three times (II = 2, III = 3)
- V
- 5 — never repeated: there is no VV, and 10 is X
- X
- 10 — repeats up to three times (XX = 20, XXX = 30)
- L
- 50 — never repeated: there is no LL, and 100 is C
- C
- 100 — repeats up to three times (CC = 200, CCC = 300)
- D
- 500 — never repeated: there is no DD, and 1,000 is M
- M
- 1,000 — repeats up to three times (MMM = 3,000)
- IV
- 4 — 5 − 1. Standard form; clock dials use IIII instead
- IX
- 9 — 10 − 1. Never written VIIII in standard form
- XL
- 40 — 50 − 10. Never XXXX
- XC
- 90 — 100 − 10. Never LXXXX
- CD
- 400 — 500 − 100. Never CCCC
- CM
- 900 — 1,000 − 100. Never DCCCC
- Which symbols may be repeated, and how many times?
- I, X, C and M — up to three in a row. V, L and D are never repeated
- Which symbols may be placed before a larger one to subtract?
- Only I, X and C — I before V or X, X before L or C, C before D or M
- A smaller symbol AFTER a larger one — add or subtract?
- Add — VI = 5 + 1 = 6, XII = 12, LX = 60
- A smaller symbol BEFORE a larger one — add or subtract?
- Subtract — IV = 5 − 1 = 4, XC = 100 − 10 = 90
- Name all six subtractive pairs in order
- IV 4, IX 9, XL 40, XC 90, CD 400, CM 900 — no other pair is standard
- Why does the standard system use subtractive pairs at all?
- To avoid writing a letter four times — IIII becomes IV, XXXX becomes XL
- Is the value of a symbol changed by where it sits in the numeral?
- No — Roman numerals are not positional; X is 10 in XI and in IX
- How are numbers of 4,000 and above written?
- Vinculum — a bar over a numeral multiplies it by 1,000 (V̄ = 5,000); 4,000 is also seen as MMMM
- How is 4 usually written on a Roman-numeral clock dial?
- IIII — the additive form, not IV. Usual on dials, though far from universal, and not an error
- Why do clock dials prefer IIII to IV?
- No settled answer — visual balance against VIII, casting moulds and medieval usage are all offered
- Read the numeral: XIV
- 14 — X + IV = 10 + 4
- Read the numeral: XXXIX
- 39 — X + X + X + IX = 10 + 10 + 10 + 9
- Read the numeral: XCIX
- 99 — XC + IX = 90 + 9
- Read the numeral: CDLXXXIV
- 484 — CD + L + X + X + X + IV = 400 + 50 + 10 + 10 + 10 + 4
- Read the numeral: MCMXCIV
- 1,994 — M + CM + XC + IV = 1,000 + 900 + 90 + 4
- Read the numeral: MMMCMXCIX
- 3,999 — M + M + M + CM + XC + IX = 1,000 + 1,000 + 1,000 + 900 + 90 + 9
- Write 27 in Roman numerals
- XXVII — X+X+V+I+I = 10+10+5+1+1
Download all 35 cards — $2.99
The printable and every card unlocked to play — $4.28 bought separately, $2.99 together. One payment, no renewal, no account. Or take every deck: Study Pack, $11.99 a month — all 78 decks, all 7,178 cards, every printable, no ads. 5 single decks costs more than one month.
Includes every card unlocked to play online — $4.28 bought separately. One payment, no account, no renewal.
Same price, opens in the editor. Reword any card, add your own, print it your way.
Questions
- How do I print them double-sided?
- Double-sided, flip on the long edge. Every front sheet is followed by its own already-mirrored back sheet, so print them in the order they come and every answer lands on its own card.
- Can I edit the cards?
- Yes, and that is half the point. Once you own the deck, the "Buy & edit" button here opens all 35 cards in the free flash card maker on this site — reword a definition, delete the ones you do not teach, add your own, and print at anything from two to nine cards a page, rather than the fixed eight of the PDF.
- Can I print a set for every student?
- Yes. Personal and classroom licence: unlimited printing, every class you teach, every year you teach it. It does not cover reselling the file or passing it on to a colleague.
- What if I find a card that is wrong?
- Tell us and we fix it, and we publish what changed. We have withdrawn a whole deck from sale for being out of date rather than quietly patch it.
- Do I need an account?
- No. $2.99 at Stripe, the file downloads on the way back, and the deck stays unlocked in this browser.