158k views
4 votes
Estimate the answer by rounding the divisor to the nearest whole number.
196,900÷4.084

2 Answers

4 votes

Answer:

48,213

Explanation:

The full answer is 48,212.5367, but because there is a 5 in the tenths place you round the whole number up

User Ivanlan
by
8.2k points
5 votes

9514 1404 393

Answer:

49,000

Explanation:

The divisor is 4.084. When it is rounded to the nearest whole number, it is 4.

Then the division problem becomes ...

196,900/4 ≈ 49,000 . . . . . . showing just 2 significant digits for the estimate

__

The point of an estimate is to obtain an approximate answer that is within a few percent of the actual answer. Here, rounding 4.084 to 4.000 gives an error on the order of .084/4 ≈ 2.1%. Because we're using a smaller divisor, the value we obtain for our estimate will be too large by about that amount.

Often, an estimate that has 1 or 2 significant digits is "close enough" for the purpose. Because a change in our estimated value of 1 in the least significant digit is a change of about 2%, we judge this estimate to be "close enough", given the rounding we did to start. Keeping 3 significant digits in our estimate would claim an accuracy that it does not have.

User JJWesterkamp
by
7.9k points
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