Two students were asked to use estimation strategies to find a reasonable
solution to this question:
John saved $1,580 in January, $4,705 in February, and $3,500 in March. Then
he spent half of the saved money. Estimate how much money John has left.
From the choices below, select the student with a more reasonable solution
Student A: John has around $5,000 left. I estimated $1,580 as
$1,600 and $4,705 as $4,700. Then I added the $1,600, $4,700
and $3,500 to get $9,800. Then I rounded this to $10,000 and
divided by 2 to get $5,000.
Student B: I estimated that John has about $6,000 left. I
estimated $1,580 as $2,000, $4,705 as $5,000, and $3,500 as
$4,000. Then I added the $2,000, $5,000 and $4,000 to get
$11,000. I finally rounded $11,000 up to $12,500 and divided by
2 to get $6,000