Three people weigh on a standard mass of 2.00 g on the same balance. Each person obtains a reading of 7.32 for the mass of the standard. These results imply that the balance that was used is ___________.
a) neither accurate nor precise
b) accurate
c) precise
d) accurate and precise
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I don't understand the question, but I guessed with the letter D anyway. My teacher told me I wasn't right and told me to fix it again. I still don't get it. :/
No. You need to brush up on the difference between precision and accuracy.
The students obtained 7.32 for a 2 g weight. That isn't very accurate at all or they would have obtained 2g wouldn't they? However. all of them obtained the same value of 7.32 so the precision is quite good.
Accuracy is how close you came to the real value. Precision is how closely each of your weighings matched. If one obtained 7.32, the second one 6.50 and the third 3.00, the precision was lousy as was the accuracy.