Question

Jen's pedometer said she walked 2.549 miles. she rounded her distance to 3 miles. her brother rounded her distance to 2.5 miles. when they argued about it, their mother said they were both right. explain how that could be true. use lines and number lines and words to explain your reasoning.

Answer 1

2.5 rounded is 3, and 2.549 rounded is 2.5
They are both correct.

Answer 2

Both the approximation made by Jen and her brother are correct.

Further explanation:

The question is based on the concept of technique of approximation or rounding off.

In the question it is given that the Jen's pedometer showed the total walking distance of $2.549\text{ miles}$.

The objective of performing approximation or rounding off is to eliminate the decimal places upto a certain level in order to make the calculation much easier.

For example: Consider the number as $838.274$.

If it is asked to round off the number $838.274$ to nearest one then the number becomes as $838$ it is because the digit to right side of decimal i.e., $2$ is less than $5$.

Similarly, if it is asked to round off the number $838.274$ to nearest hundred then the number becomes $800$ and rounding off to nearest hundreth then the number becomes $838.27$.

As per the question Jen rounded off the number $2.549$ to nearest one as $3$ and her brother rounded off the same number to nearest hundreth as $2.5$.

As per the above observation it is concluded that the both the approximations done are correct but the only difference lies in the accuracy of the pedometer reading.

The technique of approximation or rounding off is used to obtain the accuracy upto certain decimal places.

Learn more:

1. A problem to complete the square of quadratic function brainly.com/question/12992613  

2. A problem to determine the slope intercept form of a line brainly.com/question/1473992

3. Inverse function brainly.com/question/1632445  

Answer details

Grade: Middle school

Subject: Mathematics  

Topic: Estimation and approximation

Keywords: estimation, approximation, jen, brother, 2.5, 3, accuracy, round off, rounding off, nearest hundred, nearest hundreth, nearest one, nearest tens, nearest tenth.