Video:How to Round Numbers

SHARE ON                

Transcript:How to Round Numbers

Hi I'm Maria Birch for About.com and today I'm going to show you how to round numbers.

What Does it Mean to Round Numbers?

Rounding a number means that you're making the number cleaner or less complicated to use.

Instructions for How to Round Numbers

For example, 10 divided by 3 is 3.33333333… but it's not very practical to write or work with the number that way, so you can round it down to 3 or 3.3 or 3.33 using a very simple rule. And that very simple rule is that you take the digit you want to round and then you look at the digit to the right of it. If that digit is 5 or greater, you round the number up, making it greater than its original value. If that number is 4 or less, you round the number down making it less than it's original value.

Let's do a few more examples: To round 690 to the nearest thousand, we look at the digit in the hundred's place. Because it's 6, which is greater than 5, we can round up 690 to the closest thousand, which in this case is a 1000.To round 328 to the nearest hundred, we look at the digit in the ten's place. Because the digit is 2, we round down 328 to 300. Finally, to round 35.678 to the nearest hundredth, we look at the digit to the right of the hundredth which in this case is 8, so we round up 35.678 to 35.68.

You can see more examples and get worksheets to practice rounding numbers on About.com