round 5,789,345.678 to the ten-thousands place

Question

How do you round this?

Answer 1

To round a number, you must look at the number in the place immediately after the place to which you are to round to. In this case you are to round to the ten-thousands place, indicated by the 8 as underlined, and you must look to the thousands place as highlighted in green:

5,789,345.678

Rounding the number down would mean the answer would be:

5,780,000

Rounding up would make the answer:

5,790,000

To determine whether you are expected to round up or down, you must look at the instructions for the question. Normally, you are expected to round to the nearest number for that place. If that is the case, then you look to the next place(the thousands place in this case), and if that number is 5 or greater, then rounding up would be closer, therefore the correct answer. However, to trick you, you may be asked instead to simply round any number down, or to round any number up. Therefore, the correct answer may depend on the way the question is asked.

Answer 2

The ten-thousands place will be where the 8 is, as it represents eighty nine thousand...

5,789,345.678

Now, would you round this to:

5,780,000

or 

5,790,000

Which is the original number closest to (the green digit in the original number will help you decide)?

Answer 3

Hi Destiny!

The first step is to determine where the ten-thousands place is. Most people 'count' the digits from right to left starting at the decimal point: "ones", "tens", "hundreds", "thousands", "ten thousands" -- five places left of the decimal point. In this case the digit is 8.

Next you check the value of the next digit to the right. If it is 5 or greater we round up and if less than 5 we round down. In this case the next digit to the right is 9, so we round up. This means that the digit at the ten thousands place (8) is increased by 1 and becomes 9. The rest of the digits are changed to zero so the answer is 5,790,000.

The problem is more difficult if the digit to be rounded up is 9. Increasing 9 by 1 makes it 10, so we have to carry. This means that the number 5,796,123 is rounded to 5,800,000.