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Course: Arithmetic > Unit 12
Lesson 1: Adding decimals introEstimating decimal addition
Learn all about how to estimate when adding decimals. Practice rounding to the nearest whole number and how this can help us get a close approximation of the actual answer.
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- What is the difference between estimating and rounding.(34 votes)
- Estimating is finding the answer by rounding and rounding... well, rounding is just rounding(24 votes)
- i have a test tomorrow and it's about estmating decimal sums and diffrences,adding decimals using mental math,adding decimals by regrouping,exploring problems that invlove decimals, and subtracting decimals by renaming! idon't get any of that so how should i study??(11 votes)
- decimals are easy, who's with me(10 votes)
- but, from where u bring the 8(1 vote)
- He doesn’t bring an 8(18 votes)
- there is a pattern 19,10,9. like 10+9=19(8 votes)
- Yes, but does that have anything to do with quantum mechanics?(0 votes)
- what now? i dont even know! oof me(6 votes)
- In1:29, you said that wrong. You were supposed to say: "Here were told five point 1.(4 votes)
- this is hard. why. someone please help me understand the back ground to this. any help.(0 votes)
- Hi ahm3021139
this is easy if you know how to round.
so 1.64 + 2.4 is equal to 4, if you take out the .04 part. that means you need to round it down to the nearest tenth to make it equal to 4. 1.64 + 2.4 is approximately equal to 4, because if you round to the nearest tenth, it's 1.6 + 2.4.(11 votes)
- When you add a decimal is it like normal stacking addition?(1 vote)
- Yes you can use normal stacking addition for decimals, but make sure to line up the decimal points and put a decimal point directly underneath them in the answer.
Have a good day!(2 votes)
- Why round when you can estmate?(1 vote)
- Rounding and estimating are related…
Both are tools used together to make an approximation of a complete calculation.
When we estimate we're trying to get close to the answer, without having to calculate it exactly, and we use rounding to make that happen.
The closer to the real answer we get, 'the better' that estimation is considered.
Which is why the video points out…
It's best if we round one number a little bit down, and round one number a little up because it helps balance out what is lost and gained through rounding, so the estimation will be closer to the real answer.
We should pay attention and be aware which way we round each value, so we will know if the estimate is 'on the high side', or the 'low side' of the exact answer.
That's what the video is about…
How to use rounding thoughtfully to make accurate estimates.(1 vote)
Video transcript
- [Instructor] What we're going to do in this video is get some practice estimating adding decimals. Here it says 12.93 plus 6.1 is approximately equal to, this little squiggly equal
sign means approximately equal to, so try to estimate
this and pick the right choice. Pause the video and try to do that. Alright, now let's work
through this together. We could work this out by
hand, but the whole goal here is estimation, so if I were
doing this in my head I'd say, well, look, 12.93 is a
little bit less than 13, and 6.1 is a little bit more than six. And it's actually nice because
when I rounded I went down on this number and I
went up on this number. I went up 700ths to get to 13 and I went down 1/10th to
get to six, so I feel good when I add them up that we're
going to get pretty close to the actual answer. 13 plus six is equal
to 19, and lucky for us that that is one of the choices. There's multiple ways that you
could try to estimate things. For example, you could do a
little finer of an estimation. You'd say, this is
approximately 12.9 plus 6.1, and then you'd say, 12 plus
six is 18, and then, 9/10ths plus 1/10th is another one,
so you'd say this is 18 plus one, and you'd say,
okay, that, once again gets me pretty close to 19,
or, this gets me to 19. Let's do another example. Here we're told five plus one plus 4.91 is approximately equal to
what, so, pause this video and see if you can figure that out. Try to estimate it, try to
do it without any paper. The way I would do it is
actually very similar to the way we just did the last one. 5.1 is approximately equal to five, and, is approximately equal
to five, and 4.91 is also approximately equal to five. I rounded to the nearest
whole number in either case, and so, that would be equal to 10. Once again, it makes sense
because we rounded down here and we rounded up here, we
rounded down to go from 5.1 to five, and we rounded up to go from 4.91 to five. If you're rounding down in
both cases, or rounding up in both cases your estimate
might get a little bit further from your actual answer,
so you might want to be a little bit careful. Alright, so in this last
example, once again, pause the video and see if you can work through it on your own. We're just going to do
the same thing here. This is going to be approximately equal to three plus, I rounded down, 3.14, rounded to the nearest
whole number, three. 5.92 rounded to the nearest
whole number is six. And once again, just like I
mentioned in the previous ones, this is good because I am rounding down from 3.14 to three, I took away 1400ths, and I add 800ths to 5.92, so it's going to get me reasonably close to my actual answer, and
so, three plus six is equal to nine, which is, indeed,
one of the answers here. And this is actually
interesting, you're not always going to see a multiple
choice, so if you're trying to estimate things, but in
this case, you know that just three plus five is going
to be eight, and so this can't be the choice. Then you're going to have
eight plus whatever 1400ths plus 9200ths is, and you
know that's more than one, so you know our answer's going
to be a little bit over nine. Once again, nine is a good approximation.