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just curious to know if its ok to write powers of a number as decimals or if they have to be fractions in order to be marked as correct in an exam.
e.g. a^1/2 * a^2
is it correct to write the answer as a^2.5 or does it have to be a^5/2 in an exam.
(the answer in the back of the book was a^5/2 but id like to know if it would still be marked correct in an exam if you wrote it as a^2.5)
5/2 looks like an exact number while 2.5 leaves doubts of whether it is truncated or not....so on....
5/2 = 2.5 so there's no problem. However fractions are often easier to work with.
Hello, ineedmathshelp!
What would you do with?
The correct form is: .
Would you write it asor
or
?
Consider:
The cube root of 8 is 2 . . . right?
Yes but Soroban,IS correct. So how can we be sure you HAVE to use fractions even when the exact decimal is available? I don't really know how to answer this, I'd say it depends on the professor/teacher, but maybe there's some kind of notation rule that I'm not aware of or something... Maybe you should use fractions to be safe.
I agree, if you use fractions you can't go wrong.Quote:
Originally Posted by SworD
Yes but Soroban,