Rounding Whole Numbers
VocabularyRounding means making a number simpler but keeping its value close to what it was.
NotesBy rounding a number and making it simpler, the result is less accurate, but easier to use. Example:
73 rounded to the nearest ten is 70, because 73 is closer to 70 than
to 80. But 76 goes up to 80.
If you need to round a number that contains a decimal, you follow the same steps as you do with whole numbers. When solving a word problem that requires rounding, you ALWAYS round BEFORE you do any addition, subtraction, multiplication or division. Sometimes the word problem will tell you what place to round to, but sometimes they don't. If you're not told what place to round to, you can look at your answer choices to help decide which place to round to or start with the largest place the numbers in the problem have in common, moving on to the next place if that one didn't work. If you are rounding to a place in the middle of a number, you will follow the same steps as the chart and in steps 2 and 3, the digits before the underlined digit remain the same when doing your strategies. For example, if you're rounding 983,275 to the nearest thousand, step 3 will look like this: 984,000 983,275 983,000 |