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.)
12
12
To round the answer to two significant figures, follow these steps:
Step 1: Identify the two significant figures in the given number.
In the case of 11.76, the two significant figures are 1 and 1.
Step 2: Look at the digit to the right of the last significant figure.
In this case, the digit is 7.
Step 3: Determine if the digit is 5 or greater.
Since 7 is greater than 5, we round up the last significant figure.
Step 4: Change all digits to the right of the last significant figure to zero.
In this case, changing all digits to the right of the last significant figure (1) to zero gives us 12.00.
Therefore, the answer to two significant figures is 12.00 units squared.
To round the answer to two significant figures, you need to consider the digits to the left and right of the decimal point.
In the given example, the calculator provides an answer of 11.76 for the area of the rectangle. To round this to two significant figures, we first identify the two significant digits. In this case, they are 1 and 1.
The next step is to consider the digit immediately to the right of the last significant digit. In this case, it is 7. If this digit is 5 or greater, we round up the last significant digit. If it is less than 5, we leave the last significant digit as it is.
Since the digit to the right of the last significant digit in 11.76 is 6 (which is greater than 5), we need to round up the last significant digit, which is 1. Therefore, rounding up 11.76 to two significant figures gives us 12.