Question

The price of a stock had a change of –3 dollars. explain how you would use a number line to find the absolute value of –3.

Answer 1

Sample Response:  Plot –3 on a number line. Find the distance the point is from 0. –3 is 3 units from zero. The absolute value is the distance from 0. The absolute value of –3 is 3.

Answer 2

Draw out a horizontal line. Place 0 at the center. Then place evenly spaced tick marks on either side of 0. Label the right side of tick marks as 1, 2, 3, ... moving from 0 and going to the right

Label the left side of tick marks -1, -2, -3, ... starting at 0 and moving left

The location -3 on the number line is exactly 3 units away from 0. We start at 0 and move to -3 by moving 3 spots to the left; or we start at -3 and move 3 units to the right to get to 0.

Therefore, the absolute value of -3 is 3
Absolute value on a number line is the distance a number is from 0
The distance is never negative