Scientific Notation Online Practice

Question

Complete this assessment to review what you've learned. It will not count toward your grade.
11 of 1511 of 15 Items

Question
In 2010, approximately 4.6×107
tons of paper were recycled. In the same year, an estimated 2,600,000 tons of plastics were recycled. How many more tons of paper was recycled than plastic in 2010?(1 point)
Responses

4.34×102
4.34 times 10 squared

4.34×107
4.34 times 10 superscript 7 baseline

7.20×107
7.20 times 10 superscript 7 baseline

434×107

Answer 1

To find out how many more tons of paper were recycled than plastic in 2010, we first need to express the amount of plastics recycled in scientific notation to make the subtraction easier.

The plastics amount is given as 2,600,000 tons. We can convert this to scientific notation:

\[ 2,600,000 = 2.6 \times 10^6 \]

Now we can subtract the amount of plastics recycled from the amount of paper recycled:

\[ 4.6 \times 10^7 - 2.6 \times 10^6 \]

To perform the subtraction, we need to express both numbers with the same exponent. We can rewrite \(2.6 \times 10^6\) in terms of \(10^7\):

\[ 2.6 \times 10^6 = 0.26 \times 10^7 \]

Now we can subtract:

\[ 4.6 \times 10^7 - 0.26 \times 10^7 = (4.6 - 0.26) \times 10^7 = 4.34 \times 10^7 \]

So, the answer is:

4.34 × 10^7 tons of paper were recycled more than plastic in 2010.

Therefore, the correct response is:

4.34×107