Will I get penalized for not giving my answers to 3 significant figures on probability questions

[rinik]

My main concern is when I am working with binomial, Poisson and normal distribution. Sometimes( only twice out of a lot of problems solved) rounding a number to 3 significant figures might produce an incorrect value on my calculator. Will it be fine if I work with more significant figures during the entire question but give my final answer to 3 significant figures?

I know that this is a silly question but my school never covered this and I don't want to lose accuracy marks.

[Emmi]

When working with math in general you should carry all calculations with as many significant figures as possible, and then include 3 significant figures in your final answer. The best way to do this is to use the 'Sto' option on your graphing calculator. This stores the entire value, such as the entire value of pi instead of an estimate of 3.1416, and you will get an accurate final answer. If you have multiple values with many significant digits after the decimal place, store one value and use 6-7 significant digits for the other values. Preferably store something you're going to use to divide, such as if I wanted to divide 3 by 2 (which I found in an earlier step) I would do the calculations to get 3, and then use the stored value 2 to divide to get an accurate final answer.

[Bude]

My teacher says that as you're usually asked to give answers to 3 sig figs, use 4 sig figs in all of your steps then round to 3 sf when you're at the answer.

[Thrashmaster]

I have this question too. In fact, I was absent a year ago when my teacher first went over rules of significant digits, and I've been wondering for a while if the same sig fig rules apply to math as they do in chemistry.

In chem, there are scenarios where three significant figures would round a big number, say 48,923, to 48,900. Is this correct? I wouldn't want to do this in math class, right?

[Emmi]

I have this question too. In fact, I was absent a year ago when my teacher first went over rules of significant digits, and I've been wondering for a while if the same sig fig rules apply to math as they do in chemistry.

In chem, there are scenarios where three significant figures would round a big number, say 48,923, to 48,900. Is this correct? I wouldn't want to do this in math class, right?

In chemistry I believe you are also asked to give your answer to three significant figures when doing calculations on things like an exam. When working with experimental data, typically you give your significant figures based on the accuracy of your measuring apparatus. It's usually three, but can be four or two. Just something to keep in mind.

In chemistry you typically give large numbers like that in scientific notation. If I were doing an enthalpy problem and got an answer of 48,900 Joules, I would probably want to report that as 4.89 x 10^4. Although they show the same number of significant figures it looks better for some reason. I don't know haha. The above advice I gave for math also applies to chemistry. Keep a lot of significant figures in your intermediate steps and round to three at the end. This will be very important when you get to acid and base equilibrium

[Thrashmaster]

I have this question too. In fact, I was absent a year ago when my teacher first went over rules of significant digits, and I've been wondering for a while if the same sig fig rules apply to math as they do in chemistry.

In chem, there are scenarios where three significant figures would round a big number, say 48,923, to 48,900. Is this correct? I wouldn't want to do this in math class, right?

In chemistry I believe you are also asked to give your answer to three significant figures when doing calculations on things like an exam. When working with experimental data, typically you give your significant figures based on the accuracy of your measuring apparatus. It's usually three, but can be four or two. Just something to keep in mind.

In chemistry you typically give large numbers like that in scientific notation. If I were doing an enthalpy problem and got an answer of 48,900 Joules, I would probably want to report that as 4.89 x 10^4. Although they show the same number of significant figures it looks better for some reason. I don't know haha. The above advice I gave for math also applies to chemistry. Keep a lot of significant figures in your intermediate steps and round to three at the end. This will be very important when you get to acid and base equilibrium

Oh wow, I just noticed your exam year! You must really love IB kids to still be on here!

That makes sense I suppose. I have never rounded a final answer in math to three significant figures, and I haven't seen an IB mark scheme that has three sig figs written. I am just curious - I'd hate to work harder or lose points over something so trivial.

[Emmi]

Oh wow, I just noticed your exam year! You must really love IB kids to still be on here!

That makes sense I suppose. I have never rounded a final answer in math to three significant figures, and I haven't seen an IB mark scheme that has three sig figs written. I am just curious - I'd hate to work harder or lose points over something so trivial.

I'm still here because I have nothing better to do with my time Except endless physics homework, but shh..... A couple of us on here took exams a long time ago and still poke around the forum from time to time (Arrowhead graduated in 2010, Sandwich in 2009, etc).

You only really round in mathematics when told to, otherwise it's much better to give an exact answer, such as the square root of 2 instead of 1.41. Unless they've changed the rules on IB exams that involve calculations, I think they tell you to give an exact answer or round to three significant figures. If you don't do that, I think they take off one or two marks the first time it happens, and that's it. So if you did this on like every single question, you lose like 2 marks overall for significant figures instead of 20. Which is nice, considering IB graders are pretty soulless.