Question

Jacob is given a beaker full of an unknown liquid and asked to calculate the density of the substance. He places the beaker of liquid on a digital scale. The digital scale displays that the mass of the liquid and the beaker combined is 53.8 grams.

Then, Jacob pours the liquid into a graduated cylinder to measure the volume of the liquid. He finds that the liquid has a volume of 16.6 mL.

Finally, Jacob calculates the density of the liquid by using the following equation

53.8 g ÷ 16.6 mL = 3.2 g/mL
He reports the density of the liquid to be 3.2 g/mL, but his teacher tells him that the actual density of the liquid is 1.1 g/mL. What was the source of Jacob's calculation error?

Jacob used a graduated cylinder instead of a triple beam balance to calculate the volume of the liquid.

Jacob did not subtract the mass of the beaker from the combined mass before he used it in the density equation.

Jacob divided the mass of the liquid by the volume of the liquid instead of multiplying it to find the density of the liquid.

Jacob did not convert the volume of the liquid into the correct units before he used it in the density equation.

Answer 1

jacob used Mass of Container + Mass of Liquid divided by Volume of Liquid to calculate Density of Liquid
jacob should have used Mass of Liquid divided by Volume of Liquid to calculate Density of Liquid

Answer 2

Reading the paragraph 1, what do you think is happening? why is the beaker measured with the water?

Answer 3

If we only wish to find the water's density, why is the beaker involved?

Answer 4

How much did the water weigh?

Answer 5

you must exclude the beaker from weighing to get the real water's mass right?

Answer 6

Exactly.