why might you want to round to the nearest hundred rather than the nearest ten?

The answer depends on what the number means..

333 oranges can round to
330 oranges, or 300 oranges. It depends on the use of the information.

when all you have is $100 bills, you gotta round to hundreds.

Rounding to the nearest hundred instead of the nearest ten can be useful in certain situations. Here's why:

1. Increased Precision: Rounding to the nearest hundred provides a higher degree of accuracy than rounding to the nearest ten. By rounding to the nearest hundred, you essentially retain two additional digits of precision. This can be important when dealing with large numbers or when more accurate estimations are required.

2. Contextual Relevance: Rounding to the nearest hundred can be particularly relevant when dealing with larger quantities or numbers that are closer to a multiple of 100. If the value you are working with is already in hundreds, rounding to the nearest hundred can help maintain the context and make it easier to interpret the rounded number.

3. Minimizing Error Accumulation: When performing multiple rounding operations, switching to rounding to the nearest hundred can help minimize the accumulation of errors. Rounding to the nearest ten in each step can introduce cumulative errors that can be avoided by rounding to the nearest hundred at once.

To actually round a number to the nearest hundred, you'll follow these steps:

1. Determine the digit in the tens place and look at the digit immediately to the right (the ones place).
2. If the ones place digit is less than 5, simply drop the tens and ones place digits to the right of it.
3. If the ones place digit is greater than or equal to 5, add 1 to the tens place digit and drop the tens and ones place digits to the right of it.
4. Replace the dropped digits with zeros.

For example, if you have the number 867, rounding it to the nearest hundred would give you 900. To do this, you would drop the tens and ones digits (67) since they are less than 50, and replace them with zeros.