Final answer:
A positive number in the ROUND function refers to the number of decimal places to the left of the decimal point to which a number will be rounded, not to the right. When rounding, if the next digit is 5 or higher, the last significant digit is increased by 1; otherwise, it remains the same.
Step-by-step explanation:
In mathematics, the ROUND function is used to round a number to a specified number of decimal places. Contrary to the student's understanding, a positive number in the ROUND function indicates rounding to the indicated position to the left of the decimal point, not to the right. For instance, if we want to round 2.6525272 to three decimal places, we look three places after the decimal to get 2.652. Any numbers after the third decimal point are considered to decide on rounding up or down. If the first number after the third decimal place is greater than or equal to 5, the third decimal place is rounded up (e.g. 2.6525272 becomes 2.653). If less than 5, it remains the same (e.g. 2.6524272 becomes 2.652).
When dealing with addition and subtraction, the correct rounding approach is to have the same number of decimal places as the number in the operation with the smallest number of decimal places. In multiplication and division, the result should have the same number of significant figures as the original number with the least number of significant figures.
The rules of rounding dictate that: if a number greater than or equal to 5 is to be dropped, the last significant figure is increased by 1. If the number to be dropped is less than 5, the last significant figure remains unchanged. For example, rounding 2.9699 to three significant figures yields 2.97, and rounding 4.00443 to four significant figures results in 4.004.