divide and round

A

allie

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Sep 3, 2012
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5
really feeling lost in algebra..been out of school too long


-6.514 divided by -3.73 rounded to the nearest hundreth
 
Not quite. A negative number divided by a negative number gives a positive quotient. And, rounded to "ten thousandths" (which you have already done) it would be 1.7464. Do you see why?

Now, do you know which digit is the "hundredths" digit?
 
HallsofIvy said:
Not quite. A negative number divided by a negative number gives a positive quotient. And, rounded to "ten thousandths" (which you have already done) it would be 1.7464. Do you see why?

Now, do you know which digit is the "hundredths" digit?
Click to expand...
i too m pretty out of touch on this. .i round no. on instinct. . would the ans be 1.75?
 
Well, I would rather hear from allie, but, yes, the "hundredths place" is the second place after the decimal place. Since "6" is larger than 5, 1.7463 is closer to 1.75 than it is to 1.74
 
HallsofIvy said:
. Since "6" is larger than 5, **

It should be along the lines of "since 6 is larger than or equal to 5, then..."

Or, it should be along the lines of "since 6 is larger than 4, then ..."

The digit in question is being compared to the borderline digits of 4 and 5.





1.7463 is closer to 1.75 than it is to 1.74
Click to expand...

** This gives the impression that if the digit had been a 5,
that we would have rounded down.
 
lookagain said:
** This gives the impression that if the digit had been a 5,
that we would have rounded down.
Click to expand...
Not if the reader knows a little logic! Saying "if a then b" does NOT imply "if not a then not b".

And there are by the way, some texts that say "if the next digit is 5 always round to an even digit" so that half the time you would be rounding up, the other half down. The argument is that the error either way will tend to cancel.
 
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