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How To Round To The Nearest Tenth - 10 Steps (With Pictures)

The document provides instructions for rounding decimals to the nearest tenth by looking at the digit in the hundredths place and rounding the tenths place up or down accordingly; it also addresses special cases like negative numbers, very long numbers, and numbers where the tenths place is already a zero. The guidelines are explained through examples such as rounding 7.86 to 7.9 and 247.137 to 247.1.

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136 views8 pages

How To Round To The Nearest Tenth - 10 Steps (With Pictures)

The document provides instructions for rounding decimals to the nearest tenth by looking at the digit in the hundredths place and rounding the tenths place up or down accordingly; it also addresses special cases like negative numbers, very long numbers, and numbers where the tenths place is already a zero. The guidelines are explained through examples such as rounding 7.86 to 7.9 and 247.137 to 247.1.

Uploaded by

jessiepham259
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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How to Round to the Nearest Tenth


Author Info
Updated: March 29, 2019 | References

Many situations will call for you to round decimals to the nearest tenth to make
the number easier to work with. Once you understand how to find the tenths
and hundredths place, the process is very similar to rounding whole numbers.

Part
1 Rounding to the Nearest Tenth

Review rounding on a number line (optional). Let's ignore the


1 decimals for a moment and try rounding to tens instead. Draw a
number line from 10 to 20. The numbers on the left half of the line
(like 13 or 11) are closer to 10, so they round to 10. The numbers on
the right half (like 16 or 17) are closer to 20, so they round to 20.
Rounding with decimals can seem confusing, but it's really the same
process. You could relabel your number line as "0.10, 0.11, 0.12, ...,
0.19, 0.2" and you'd have a number line for rounding to the nearest
tenth.[1]

Write down a number with a decimal point. It doesn't matter


2 how many digits come after the decimal.
Example 1: Round 7.86 to the nearest tenth.
Example 2: Round 247.137 to the nearest tenth.

Find the tenths place. The tenths place is immediately to the


3 right of the decimal point.[2] After rounding to the nearest tenth,
this will be the final digit in your number. For now, just underline this
digit.
Example 1: In the number 7.86, the 8 is in the tenths place.
Example 2: In the number 247.137, the 1 is in the tenths place.

Look at the hundredths place. The hundredths place is the digit


4 to the right of the decimal point. This digit tells you whether to
round up or down.
Example 1: In the number 7.86, the 6 is in the hundredths place.
Example 2: In the number 247.137, the 3 is in the hundredths
place.
The digits to the right of the hundredths do not matter when
you're rounding to the nearest tenth. They represent "extra stuff"
to small to make a difference.

Round the tenths place up if the hundredths place is 5 or


5 more. Is the digit in the hundredths place is 5, 6, 7, 8, or 9? If it
is, "round up" by adding 1 to the tenths place digit. Get rid of all digits
after the tenths place, and you have your answer.
Example 1: The number 7.86 has a 6 in the hundredths place.
Round up by adding 1 to the tenths place to get 7.9, removing the
digits to the right.
Round down if the hundredths place is 4 or less. Is the digit in
6 the hundredths place 4, 3, 2, 1, or 0? If it is, "round down" by
leaving the tenth place as it is. Just remove any digits in the
hundredths place and further to the right.
Example 2: The number 247.137 has a 3 in the hundredths
place. Round down by removing everything past the tenths place,
to get 247.1.

Part
2 Special Cases

Round down to a zero in the tenths place. If there's a zero in


1 the tenths place and your round down, keep the zero in your
answer. For example, 4.03 rounded to the nearest tenth is 4.0. This
gives people a better idea of the accuracy of your number. Just
writing "4" isn't wrong, but it hides the fact that you were working with
decimals.

Round negative numbers. Rounding negative numbers is


2 basically the same as rounding positive numbers. Follow the
same process and always keep the minus sign in your answer. For
example, -12.56 round to -12.6, and -400.333 rounds to -400.3.
Be careful about using the phrases "round down" and "round up."
If you look at a number line for negative numbers, you'll see that
rounding -12.56 to -12.6 moves left, so that's "rounding down"
even though you increased the tenth digit by 1.

Round extra long numbers. Don't get confused by super long


3 numbers. The rules stay the same. Find the tenths place and
figure out whether to round up or down. After rounding, all the
numbers to the left of the tenths place will stay the same, and all the
numbers to the right of the tenths place will disappear. Here are three
examples:
7192403242401.29 rounds to 7192403242401.3
5.0620138424107 rounds to 5.1
9000.30001 rounds to 9000.3

Keep numbers with no hundredths place the same. Does the


4 number end in the tenths place, with nothing further to the right?
This number is already rounded to the nearest tenth, so you don't
need to do anything here. Your textbook might be trying to trick you.
For example, 1509.2 is already rounded to the nearest tenth.

Community Q&A
Question

Should I round .5 up, or down?

wikiHow Staff Editor


Staff Answer

If you're rounding to the nearest whole number and there is a .5 in


the tenths place, then you should round up (e.g., 1.5 would round up
to 2). However, if you're rounding to the nearest tenth and there is
nothing in the hundredths place after the .5, leave it as it is.

Question

Is there a calculator for rounding numbers?

wikiHow Staff Editor


Staff Answer
Yes, there are a variety of rounding calculators online, like the
Rounding Numbers Calculator at CalculatorSoup.com. However,
once you get the hang of it, rounding is a very simple procedure that
doesn’t really require a calculator.

Question

How do I round to the nearest hundredth?

wikiHow Staff Editor


Staff Answer

Look at what is in the thousandths place and round up or down


based on that. Your result should have 2 decimal places, unless
there is a 0 in the hundredths place and something smaller than 1 in
the thousandths place. For example, 7.586 would round up to 7.59.
2.324 would round down to 2.32. 6.301 would round down to 6.3.

Question

Do I round up 7.66 to 7.7?

Donagan
Top Answerer

If you're rounding to the nearest tenth, yes.

Question

Could I round up .003, or can it only be zero?

Donagan
Top Answerer

Rounding .003 to the nearest tenth is 0.0.


Question

How do I round 7.449 to the nearest tenth?

Donagan
Top Answerer

Because the hundredths place is 4, do not round up the tenths


place. Leave it alone, and eliminate everything to the right of it.
7.449 rounds to 7.4.

Question

How would I round 11.932?

Donagan
Top Answerer

To the nearest tenth, it's 11.9.

Question

How can I round 13.959 to the nearest tenth?

Community Answer

Because the hundredths place is 5, add 1 to 9 which is in the tenth


place. That will make it 14.0.

Question

How can I round 23.922 to the nearest tenth?

Donagan
Top Answerer

Because the hundredths place is 2, do not round up the tenth's


place. Leave it alone, and eliminate the digits to the right of the
tenth's place.

Question

How can I round 3.993 to the nearest tenth?

Community Answer

Look at the hundredth's place and you see it needs to round up.
Since the tenth's place already has a 9, then the one's place must
round up as well. 4.0 is the correct answer.

Tips
Does your teacher or textbook round down from 5 instead of
rounding up? This isn't very common, but there's nothing wrong with
it. Since 5 is exactly in between the two numbers, rounding either
way is just as accurate.[3]

References

1. https://www.mathsisfun.com/rounding-numbers.html
2. https://www.khanacademy.org/math/pre-algebra/decimals-pre-alg/dec-r
ounding-estimation-pre-alg/v/rounding-decimals
3. https://www.khanacademy.org/math/arithmetic/arith-decimals/arith-revi
ew-rounding-decimals/v/rounding-decimals-on-the-number-line
4. https://www.purplemath.com/modules/placeval3.htm
5. http://mathforum.org/library/drmath/view/58961.html

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