Using Significant Figures

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AP Chemistry › Using Significant Figures

Questions 1 - 10
1

The mass of five objects are , , , , and . What is the total mass of all four objects?

Explanation

When performing addition or subtraction in chemistry you can only be as precise as the number with the fewest number of decimal not significant figures. Because only has 1 decimal place the answer of the addition problem can only have 1 decimal place. All of the other numbers have more than 1 decimal place so that is why the other answers are incorrect.

2

How many significant figures are in the given number?

Explanation

Let's look at the rules of significant figures:

I. All nonzero digits are significant.

II. Any zero found anywhere between nonzero digits is significant.

III. Any zero to the right of the decimal point AND after a nonzero digit is significant.

IV. Any zero to the left of the decimal point AND after a nonzero digit is significant. Any zero found after a nonzero digit with no decimal point indication is NOT significant.

Rule I gives us only one nonzero significant figure. However, rule IV tells us that the zeroes are significant because there is a decimal present and the zeroes are following a nonzero digit. Therefore, has four significant figures.

3

Perform the calculation above to the correct number of significant figures.

Explanation

When performing multiplication and division in chemistry, the answer to the question can only have as many significant figures as the number with the fewest number of significant figures.

has 4 significant figures

has 2 significant figures

has 3 significant figures

has 3 significant figures

Thus the answer must have 2 significant figures because only has 2 significant figures.

disregarding significant figures. However to round to 2 significant figures, the answer becomes

4

How many significant figures are in the given number?

Explanation

Let's look at the rules of significant figures:

I. All nonzero digits are significant.

II. Any zero found anywhere between nonzero digits is significant.

III. Any zero to the right of the decimal point AND after a nonzero digit is significant.

IV. Any zero to the left of the decimal point AND after a nonzero digit is significant. Any zero found after a nonzero digit with no decimal point indication is NOT significant.

Let's look at rule I. In , there is only one nonzero digit and two zeroes present. That gives us one significant figure. Now, looking at rule III, the zero is to the right of the decimal but there is no nonzero digit to the left of it, making the leading zero insignificant. Finally, in rule IV, the zero after the decimal point is before the nonzero digit making and is also insignificant.

contains only one significant figure.

5

Round the above measurement to three significant figures.

Explanation

To round a number to 3 significant figures count to the 3rd significant figure and apply the rules of rounding to the next number. If the next number is 5 or higher round up, if it is 4 or below round down.

The 3rd significant figure is the 7. The next number is an 8 so the 7 is rounded up to an 8. As there are 4 places before the decimal point this answer must have 4 places

rounds to with three significant figures.

The other answers are wrong because:

has 4 significant figures due to the decimal point

rounds in the wrong direction

only has 2 significant figures

does not have the same amount of places before the decimal point

6

How many significant figures are in ?

Explanation

follows the rules of significant figures.

1. Any digit 1-9 is always significant (So the 8 and the 3 are significant)

2. Any zero sandwiched between two digits 1-9 is always significant (No 0 in this case is significant because of this rule)

3. If the number is larger than 1 and there is no decimal point, a zero at the end is NOT significant (trailing zero rule, no zeros are a part of this rule)

4. If the number is less than 1 any 0 before the first nonzero digit is not significant (leading zero rule)

In the number 0.000830 the bolded zeros are not significant because they are leading zeros

5. If a number has a decimal point, any zero that follows a non-zero digit is significant.

0.000830 is the number. The last 0 follows a 3 and this number has a decimal point so it is significant. Totaling the significant figures, we have 3 sig figs.

0.000830 3 Significant Figures.

7

How many significant figures does 0.000500 have?

Explanation

When dealing with decimal numbers, zeros only count as long as there is a non-zero number somewhere before them. The first 4 zeros have no non-zero number before them, so they don't count as significant figures. The last 2 zeros have a 5 in front of them, so those zeros count as significant figures, and so does that 5; which gives us a total of 3 significant figures.

8

Which of the following numbers has 4 significant figures?

Explanation

For scientific notation, the exponent next to the ten has nothing to do with significant figures; it's the decimal number before it that determines the number of significant figures. Based on those decimal numbers, and each have one significant figure, and has three significant figures. When dealing with non-decimal numbers, zeros only count if they are in between two non-zero numbers. That means that 1,340 only has three significant figures, and 1,001 has 4 significant figures.

9

How many significant figures are in the given number?

Explanation

Let's look at the rules of significant figures:

I. All nonzero digits are significant.

II. Any zero found anywhere between nonzero digits is significant.

III. Any zero to the right of the decimal point AND after a nonzero digit is significant.

IV. Any zero to the left of the decimal point AND after a nonzero digit is significant. Any zero found after a nonzero digit with no decimal point indication is NOT significant.

Let's look at rule I. only has one nonzero digit, and two zeroes. So far, there's one significant digit. There is no decimal point present, so according to rule IV the zeroes are insignificant. only has one significant figure.

10

Answer the following problem using the correct number of significant figures.

Explanation

Whenever multiplying, the final answer will have the same number of significant figures as the number with the least least number of significant figures in the question. 130.5 has 4 significant figures and 12 has 2 significant figures, that means that our answer must have 2 significant figures. , but that's 4 significant figures instead of 2. So we need to round this to 2 significant figures. Our answer to the correct number of significant figures is 1600.

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