FILM SLR's light meter/exposure question?

Hmmm those sound more like F stop numbers than anything on a light meter. if you don't know what an f-stop is, then you definitely need to hit a search engine or your local library. Most meters, even old ones tend to have an indication for proper exposure and then go + in one direction and - in the other direction . i have never seen a built-in light meter go as far as 16 stops. As someone said, you likely need to read the manual.