Rounding and Decimals:

Round a Number to the Nearest Whole Number or Integer

Sometimes in real life, we can’t use decimals. For example, the number of people you are inviting to a party can’t be a decimal number. You can’t have 8.7 people but you can have 8 or 9 people. Rounding to the nearest whole number is how we deal with problems like this. The table below shows the rules for whether you round up (from 4.56 to 5) or down (from 4.46 to 4).

Tenths Place How to round to nearest whole number or integer Example
0,1,2,3,4 Keep the number in the one's place 17.4 Rounds to 17
\(-3.4\) Rounds to \(-3\)
5,6,7,8,9 Increase the number in the one's place by 1 17.5 Rounds to 18
\(-1.6\) Rounds to \(-2\)

Video Source (09:46 mins) | Transcript

Practice Problems

  1. Round 2.3 to the nearest whole number.
  2. Round \(-0.8\) to the nearest integer.
  3. Round 72 to the nearest whole number.
  4. Round 2.94 to the nearest whole number.
  5. Round \(-24.49999\) to the nearest integer.
  6. Round 42.0201 to the nearest whole number.

Solutions

  1. 2 (Written Solution)
  2. \(-1 \)(Written Solution)
  3. 72
  4. 3 (Solution Video | Transcript)
  5. \(-24\)
  6. 42 (Solution Video | Transcript)