I wish they would standardize the notation all throughout the world and througout all applications.
Here are the three most common ways of writing things down, and their abbreviations:
Method one: Degrees and decimals of degrees. I don't have the degree sign here, will use a * for that: N 50.8595* W 0.7591*. The * is usually left out.
Method two, the method used most commonly in aviation, is degrees, minutes and decimals of minutes:
N 50* 51.57' W 0* 45.55'. Leaving out the signs gets you N5051.57 and W00045.55
Method three is degrees, minutes and seconds. The same position as before would be:
N 50* 51' 34" W 0* 45' 33". Leaving out the signs gets you N505134 and W0004533
So look at the location of the decimal point first to see what sort of notation method they use. From there, you can figure out what the numbers mean.
And in Google Earth you can just input whatever method into the search box and "fly" directly to that destination. Google Earth knows all three methods, although you've got to leave spaces between the degrees, minutes and seconds - you can't concatenate the whole lot together like I did above. Unfortunately you can't use GE on the test...