DECIMAL NUMBERS – ROUNDING

Concept: Use rounding to make difficult calculations easier to perform, especially when you do not need exact numbers in your calculations.

Steps for Rounding Decimal Numbers

Step 1 | Find the digit you want to round to. Call it the target digit.
Step 2 | Look at the digit to the right of the target digit.
Step 3 | If the digit to the right of the target digit is 5 or more, add 1 to the target digit. If the digit to the right of the target digit is less than 5, do not change the target digit.
Step 4 | In either case, drop all digits to the right of the target digit.

Example Round 0.774168 to the nearest thousandths

Step 1 | Find the digit you want to round to. Call it the target digit. In this case we are targeting the thousandths digit which is a 4 in 0.774168. | 0.77 4 168
Step 2 | Look at the digit to the right of the target digit. That digit is a 1. | 0.774 1 68
Step 3 | If the digit to the right of the target digit is a 5 or more, add 1 to the target digit. If the digit to the right of the target digit is less than a 5, do not change the target digit. 1 is less than 5, so we will not change the target digit. Our target digit remains a 4. | 0.77 4 1 68
Step 4 | In either case, drop all digits to the right of the target digit . 0.774168 rounded to the nearest thousandths is 0.774 000. | 0.774 000