Question

Annual tuition at a private four-year college averages 3.2×104 dollars. How many thousands of dollars is that?

Answer 1

To convert the annual tuition from scientific notation to thousands of dollars, we can interpret \(3.2 \times 10^4\) as follows:

- \(3.2 \times 10^4\) means \(3.2\) multiplied by \(10,000\) (since \(10^4 = 10,000\)).
- Calculating this gives:

\[
3.2 \times 10^4 = 3.2 \times 10,000 = 32,000 \text{ dollars}
\]

Now, since we want to express this amount in thousands of dollars, we need to divide by \(1,000\):

\[
\frac{32,000}{1,000} = 32
\]

Therefore, the annual tuition is **32 thousands of dollars**.