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Formatting answers

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Standard form is a format of providing answers, typically used for very large or very small numbers. It uses powers of 10 to show the number by expressing it in the form a × 10ˢ, where s is a positive or negative integer and a is grater than or equal to 1 and less than 10. S represents the number of places the decimal point moves; if it is positive, the decimal moves to the right, and if it is negative, the decimal moves to the left.

A unit of measurement is one unit of a quantity. There are standard units that are used for different quantities. For length, kilometres (km) and metres (m) are used for long distances, and centimetres (cm) and millimetres (mm) are used for shorter distances. For mass, kilograms (kg) are used for great masses and grams (g) are used for smaller ones. Time can be measured in seconds, minutes or hours. Price can be measured in Pounds (£), Euros €) or pence/cents (p). Questions will ask for answers to be given to a specific number of decimal places, which is the number of digits after the decimal point. If the digit after the last one that is kept is greater than or equal to 5, 1 is added to the last digit. Price is always given to 2 decimal places.

When rounding to the nearest 10, 100 etc or to a specific number of decimal places/significant figures, if the digit after the cut−off point is 5 or above, round up − if it’s under 5, round down.

Round values in the question, usually to 1 s.f. to estimate answers. To calculate bounds, half the degree of accuracy and add it to the estimation for the upper bound or subtract for the lower bound.