Round 23.5481 to the nearest thousandth

23.548

Step-by-step explanation: The thousandths place is 3 places to the right of the decimal point so in this problem, the digit in the rounding place is 8.

The rules of rounding says that if the digit to the right of the rounding place is greater than or equal to 5, we round down but if the digit to the right of the rounding place is less than 5, we round down.

Since the digit to the right of the rounding place, 1, is less than 5, we round down. This means that the digit in the rounding place which is 8 stays the same and we change all digits to the right of 8 to zero.

So we have 23.5480.

Finally, it's important to understand that when rounding decimals, we can drop any zeroes to the right of the decimal point as long as they're also to the right of the rounding place.

This means that 23.5481 rounded to the nearest thousandth is 23.548.