To determine how to round the number [tex]$36,159.628 to the nearest thousand, let's follow these steps:
1. Identify the thousands place in the number. In $[/tex]36,159.628[tex]$, it is the digit in the ten-thousands place, which is 3.
2. Look at the digit in the hundreds place to decide whether to round up or down. Here, the digit in the hundreds place is 1.
3. According to rounding rules:
- If the digit in the hundreds place is 5 or greater, round up.
- If the digit in the hundreds place is less than 5, round down.
Since the digit in the hundreds place is 1 (which is less than 5), we round down.
4. Rounding down means we keep the digit in the thousands place the same (3) and change all digits to the right of it to 0.
Therefore, rounding $[/tex]36,159.628 to the nearest thousand gives us:
36,000
So, the correct answer is:
b. 36,000
