when to round up in $ or to use $ and cents

This is a good question & I know it can be a worry when its an ‘fill in box’ answer ( where the space is blank for you to write the number yourself.

For this type of question CIMA are very careful that rounding won’t be a reason to fail if your underpinning knowledge is correct.

So CIMA will:

1) Use that question type mainly with numbers, which avoid rounding issues..

2) They will clearly say – answer to the nearest WHOLE dollar.

3) Or sometimes the question behind the scenes is set to allow a range of answers ( eg 3.35 to 4.05) will be accepted.

Most often though they will give you the answers in MCQ format + one answer will be clearly closer to the correct one that the others….

General advice is that when you need a number with lots of decimals to form part of another calculation ( save the long number in your calculator and enter it into the new calc) then just round your final answer at the END.
This means you have to know your calculator functions to ‘insert previous answer’ into the current sum – but that is best way to get accuracy in the final result. I know some study materials dont always do this ( they round early on in the sequence) but method described is best practice.

Hope thats ok
Cath