random Maths GCSE question

When doing any question that leads to a decimal answer (e.g. iteration and growth and decay), but the question requires a whole number answer due to the context (for example, the number of people in a population), is the answer rounded to a whole number or just truncated? My exam board is OCR if that helps. ty

(edited 11 months ago)

Reply 1

azure000

11

I did Edexcel, but it was rounded in certain contexts and truncated in others, you have to be really tailored to the specifics of the question.

Often it is rounded down/truncated though.

There isn't too much variation between the boards in maths but hope it helps.

Reply 2

StudyGirlGrammar

13

Original post by Dazza07h

When doing any question that leads to a decimal answer (e.g. iteration and growth and decay), but the question requires a whole number answer due to the context (for example, the number of people in a population), is the answer rounded to a whole number or just truncated? My exam board is OCR if that helps. ty

Hello. It depends on the question, for example the population one, if the question is asking how many people can sit in a train and if you get an answer of 100.4 and it says work out, then the answer will be truncated - it would be 100. But in most cases it will tell you what to do or to round or not.

Reply 3

dev.eshh

9

Original post by Dazza07h

When doing any question that leads to a decimal answer (e.g. iteration and growth and decay), but the question requires a whole number answer due to the context (for example, the number of people in a population), is the answer rounded to a whole number or just truncated? My exam board is OCR if that helps. ty

my teacher always taught us, that if it is not specified in the question , always round to 3 significant figures, this way it will look neat and you will get the marks!

hope this helps
dev

Reply 4

Dazza07h

OP

12

Original post by dev.eshh

my teacher always taught us, that if it is not specified in the question , always round to 3 significant figures, this way it will look neat and you will get the marks!
hope this helps
dev

This is true 9 out of ten times but not always. For example, this was a question on a previous OCR paper:

Riley and Sam are conducting surveys.
They are both given the same list of 12463 people from which to select their sample.

Riley selects every 56th person.
Sam selects every 64th person.
They both start counting from the first name in the list.

Work out how many people will be selected to be in both surveys.
You must show your working.

You were expected to find the lowest common multiple, which was 448. Then divide the number of people, 12463, by the lowest common multiple. The answer to that was 27.819... but to get all 5 marks the final answer needed to be 27, despite not being stated in the question.

Reply 5

Neatstudy.mirale

9

Original post by dev.eshh

my teacher always taught us, that if it is not specified in the question , always round to 3 significant figures, this way it will look neat and you will get the marks!
hope this helps
dev

Same it also says it on the specification or on the front exam paper as one of the rules

Reply 6

mqb2766

21

Original post by Dazza07h

This is true 9 out of ten times but not always. For example, this was a question on a previous OCR paper:
Riley and Sam are conducting surveys.
They are both given the same list of 12463 people from which to select their sample.
Riley selects every 56th person.
Sam selects every 64th person.
They both start counting from the first name in the list.
Work out how many people will be selected to be in both surveys.
You must show your working.
You were expected to find the lowest common multiple, which was 448. Then divide the number of people, 12463, by the lowest common multiple. The answer to that was 27.819... but to get all 5 marks the final answer needed to be 27, despite not being stated in the question.

The basic problem here is about integers or divisibility and using real numbers like 27.819 could be misleading. It would have been better to say the integer division problem gives
27 r 367
So there are 27 lots of 448 in 12463 and a bit left over (remainder). There are not 28 lots.

(edited 11 months ago)

random Maths GCSE question

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