Jeanne Hall, age 11, of Minot, N.D., for her question:

EXACTLY HOW MUCH IS A LITER?

Liter is a commonly used measure of capacity and volume in the metric system. Sometimes you'll find the word is spelled "litre."

A liter has no officially defined volume. The official unit for volume in the metric system is the cubic meter. But most people in countries using the metric system use the liter in place of the cubic meter.

In common usage, the liter equals a cubic decimeter, or 1,000 cubic centimeters. One liter contains 61.024 cubic inches and is equal to 1.0567 liquid quarts. A liter actually contains 3.27 cubic inches of liquid more than a quart. A quart is 57.75 cubic inches.