Let A be the class of abelian p-groups. A non-empty proper subclass θ ? B ? A is bounded if it is closed under subgroups, additively bounded if it is also closed under direct sums and perfectly bounded if it is additively bounded and closed under filtrations. If U = A - B, we call the partition of A given by (B,U) a B/U-pair. We state most of our results not in terms of bounded classes, but rather the corresponding B/U-pairs. Any additively bounded class contains a unique maximal perfectly bounded subclass. The idea of the length of a reduced group is generalized to the notion of the length of an additively bounded class. If λ is an ordinal or the symbol ∞, then there is a natural largest and smallest additively bounded class of length λ, as well as a largest and smallest perfectly bounded class of length λ. If λ ≤ ω, then there is a unique perfectly bounded class of length λ, namely the p~λ-bounded groups that are direct sums of cyclics; however, this fails when λ > ω. This parallels results of Dugas, Fay and Shelah (1987) and Keef (1995) on the behavior of classes of abelian p-groups with elements of infinite height. It also simplifies, clarifies and generalizes a result of Cutler, Mader and Megibben (1989) which states that the p~(ω + 1)-projectives cannot be characterized using filtrations.
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