Suppose you are asked to find the area of a rectangle that is 2.1- wide by 5.6- long. Your calculator answer would be 11.76 . Now suppose you are asked to enter the answer to two significant figures. (Note that if you do not round your answer to two significant figures, your answer will fall outside of the grading tolerance and be graded as incorrect.)

few

2,6

1.18*10^2

To find the area of a rectangle, you need to multiply its length by its width. In this case, the width is given as 2.1 units and the length is given as 5.6 units.

To calculate the area using a calculator, you would multiply these two numbers:

2.1 * 5.6 = 11.76

Now, to round the answer to two significant figures, we need to determine which digits are significant. In this case, both the width and length are given to two significant figures, so our answer should also be rounded to two significant figures.

To round to two significant figures, we need to consider the digits right after the two significant digits. In this case, the digit after the 6 is 7. Since 7 is equal to or greater than 5, we round up.

So, rounding 11.76 to two significant figures, we get:

11.76 rounded to two significant figures = 12