Question

Estimate the area of a rectangle with length 58 foot and a width of 49 foot. Explain.58 rounds to 1, and 49 rounds to 1. The area is about 1 sq ft.58 rounds to 23, and 49 rounds to 23. The area is about 49 sq ft.58 rounds to 12, and 49 rounds to 12. The area is about 14 sq ft.58 rounds to 0, and 49 rounds to 0. The area is about 0 sq ft.

Answer 1

Recall that the area of a rectangle is given by the following formula:

Area = length * width

then using our values for length and width we replace them in the formula and obtain...

Area = length * width = 58 ft * 49 ft = 2842 square ft.

If your teacher wants you to round the answer because he/she wants you to do this without a calculator, I would do the following:

58 is close to 60 (which is an easier number for multiplication)

49 on the other han is close to 50 (also an easier number for multiplication)

Therefore we can round the calculation of the area to the following:

Area = 60 * 50 which is approximately 3000 square feet.

This is the way I would try rounding to estimate the area of the rectangle.

One can mentally do the product 5 * 6 = 30, and append to it the two zeros that are included in 60 and in 50.

The values for the length and width of the rectangle are in fact fractions:

Length = 5/8, and width = 4/9

So we round the following way:

5/8 is close to 4/8 (which reduced is 1/2), and 4/9 is close to 4/8 (which reduced is also 1/2)

Therefore the product for the area is going to raound to 1/2 * 1/2 = 1/4

Then please select the THIRD option that you showed in the picture.