a resistor has multiple bands of color on its side. the most common have four or five but they can range all the way up to 6 per resistor. on a four band resistor, the last band is usually gold or silver. the gold band represents a positive or negative 5% tolerance. the silver band on a resistor represents a positive or negative 10% tolerance. hold this band on the right side, and read the colors from left to right. the first two bands are read as the numbers that they represent in the color code. the third band acts as a multiplier for the other bands, so for example, if the third band was an orange band which is a 3, it would mean you multiply the two numbers by 1000. in short you add the value of the color in zeros at the end, so add three zeros.