Question

Assignment 01.11 Estimating
Step 1- Read the passage Who was Leonardo da Vinci?


Who was Leonardo da Vinci?
Leonardo da Vinci trained as a painter during the Renaissance and became a true master of the craft. His amazing powers of observation and skill as an illustrator enabled him to notice and recreate the effects he saw in nature, and added a special liveliness to all of his portraits. Curious as well as observant, he constantly tried to explain what he saw, and described many experiments to test his ideas. Because he wrote down and sketched so many of his observations in his notebooks, we know that he was among the very first to take a scientific approach towards understanding how our world works and how we see it. He had a keen eye and quick mind that led him to make important scientific discoveries, yet he never published his ideas. He was a gentle vegetarian who loved animals and despised war, yet he worked as a military engineer to invent advanced and deadly weapons. He was one of the greatest painters of the Italian Renaissance, yet he left only a handful of completed paintings.

Step 2- In the paragraph above, estimate the number of words by using the following three methods, and answer the the four questions that follow. You must show all work. Even if you have the right answer you will not get full credit without work.

Method 1 - Count the number of words in one sentence
and then multiply that number by the number of sentences in the paragraph.
Method 2 - Count the number of words in one line
and then multiply that number by the number of lines in the paragraph.
Method 3 - Find the number of words in three lines
and then divide by three to find out the average number of words in these lines.
Then multiply this by the number of lines in the paragraph.

Question 1
What is estimate of the total number of words with method 1? What sentence did you use?
Question 2
What is estimate of the total number of words with method 2? What line did you use?
Question 3
What is estimate of the total number of words with method 3?
Question 4
Which estimation method is the closest to the actual number of words?

Answer 1

Answer:

Q1. 168 words from sixth sentence.

Q2. 171 words from line 3.

Q3. 177 words from the first three sentences.

Q4. Method 3.

Step-by-step explanation:

Question 1.

The paragraph has seven sentences.

I chose the sixth sentence ("gentle vegetarian"). It contains 24 words.

7 sentences × (24 words/1 sentence) = 168 words

Question 2.

The passage contains 19 lines.

I chose line 3 ("amazing powers"). It contains nine words.

19 lines × (9 words/1 line) = 171 words.

Question 3.

I chose the first three lines. They contain 28 words.

Words per line = 28 words/3 lines = 9.33 words per line

Total words = 19 lines × (9.33 words/1 line) = 177 words

Question 4

The passage contains 176 words. Method 3 comes closest to the actual number of words.