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Rounding whole numbers to nearest thousand

Sal rounds 423,275 to the  nearest thousand. Created by Sal Khan and Monterey Institute for Technology and Education.

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  • starky ultimate style avatar for user Richard Huynh
    I have a problem at rounding up this number, this is either my teacher teach me this or I just don't know:
    Round 14,699 to the nearest ten thousand


    I have 2 way of doing this
    - Round every single number, start at the one, and then move up to ten thousand.
    - Round the thousand.


    If with way 1, I'll get 20000 (my teacher taught me this)
    If with way 2, I'll get 10000 (like the demonstration)

    Which way is correct?
    (31 votes)
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    • duskpin ultimate style avatar for user learn
      The answer would be 10000. You always use the digit to the right of the place you want to round to help you determine whether to round up or down. But notice you said "round the thousand", but you are actually rounding the ten thousand, by looking at the thousand.
      (36 votes)
  • mr pink red style avatar for user haugenak
    when you round to the nearest hundred thousand what do you do?
    (10 votes)
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    • piceratops ultimate style avatar for user 1&only
      When you round to the nearest hundred thousand you round up by a hundred thousand. For example, lets say you have, 587,531, when you round to the nearest hundred thousand it becomes 600,000. Hope this helps.
      (8 votes)
  • primosaur sapling style avatar for user Miles
    How do you round fraction
    (8 votes)
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  • old spice man blue style avatar for user Ali
    I think he switched the greater than and less than sign.<5 >5
    (6 votes)
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  • male robot hal style avatar for user Ethan Lee
    yeah 5 is supposed to round up. 5 is closer to the following.
    (6 votes)
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  • duskpin ultimate style avatar for user Bubbletea Person!!!
    Oh my goodness I am so confused someone help me!
    Edit: Thank you for all the support now I finally get it!
    (4 votes)
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    • male robot hal style avatar for user Aztik
      So, just try to get this formula -
      When it is rounding of to tens, check the ones place.

      When it is rounding of to hundreds, check the tens place.

      When it is rounding of to thousands, check the hundreds place.

      Got the pattern? So it is like we go to check the before digit. So if I ask you to round ten-thousands, the answer should be to check the thousand's place. So, now that we have to round to the thousand's, I am going to check the hundred's place.

      Let's take the number 343,798 for example. Now, check the hundred's place. Did you get it? Well, the hundred's place is 7. So, is it 5 or more than 5, or less than 5? Well, it is 7 so it is greater than 5. So it will go forward. So it will become 10. Then the numbers which are front of it will also become 0. So, the number's 9 in the ten's digit and the number 8 in the one's digit will become 0. Now, is the rounding finished? No, it is not. The number 7 has become 10 so we have to change the thousand's digit, in this case, 3. Now, add 1 to 3, because the ten's place in the number 10 is 1. So after you add 1 to the thousand's place, it becomes four. And, we are done. The answer is 344,000. If you got it, please comment below and this a challenge, try to figure out what happens if the hundred's place is less then 5. Comment below! And please give the answer to this question. 254,667 rounded of to the nearest thousand's. Feel free to comment down below if you have any doubts. I am glad to answer!

      - Akshay
      (5 votes)
  • blobby green style avatar for user Lee Venus
    A question in my worksheet says: ROUND DOWN 858.6 to tthe nearest THOUSANDS. How do you do this one?
    (1 vote)
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  • marcimus pink style avatar for user Olusoga Esther
    if 423000=42000 then what is 454000=
    (1 vote)
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    • stelly blue style avatar for user Kim Seidel
      Assuming your are rounding on thousands, 454,000 is already rounded on thousands.

      And FYI 423,000 doesn't round to 42,000
      42 thousand is significantly smaller than 423 thousand.

      If you are rounding on ten thousands, then 423,00 rounds to 420,000 (not 42,000). And, 454,000 rounds to 450,000.
      (2 votes)
  • hopper cool style avatar for user no name necessary
    can you round millions and billions?
    (1 vote)
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  • spunky sam blue style avatar for user vn9032373
    if the number is big like 6 would we add up or down?
    (1 vote)
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Video transcript

Round 423,275 to the nearest thousand. So let me rewrite it: 423,275. And so the thousands place is the 3 right here, and so if we were round it up to the nearest thousand, we would go to 420-- let me write it so we just focus on the 3-- we would go up to 424,000 if we wanted to round up, 424,000, and if we wanted to round down, we would go to 423,000. We would get rid of the 275. 423,000. So this is our choice. Round up to 424,000 or round down to 423,000. And to figure it out, we just look at the digit one place to the right of the 3, so we look at the 2 right there. If that digit is 5 or greater, you round up. So this is 5. So if this is greater than or equal to 5, 5 or greater, you round up. If it's less than 5, you round down. 2 is definitely less than 5, so we just round down, so it is 423,000. Now just to visualize what this means to the nearest thousand, if I were to do a number line-- and you don't have to do this. We've gotten the answer, but just to have a little bit better visualization of it, if I were to increment by thousands, you might have 422,000, 423,000. You have 424,000, and then maybe over here, you have 425,000, and you could keep going. Now 423,275 is going to be someplace right around here. And so when we round to the nearest thousand, we have to pick between that and that. We see that it much closer to 423,000 than to 424,000, so we round it right there. But you just use the rules we just came up with, and we rounded down to 423,000.