Test: Basic Skills
Goals and Review

 
   

Your first quiz will cover the following topics: the Scientific Method, System Internationale, Unit Conversions, Scientific Notation, and Measurement and Significant Figures. Review the notes pages on these topics, as well as your class notes and homework problems.

 

You should be able to:

  • Explain the meaning of the SI prefixes T, G, M, k, d, c, m, µ, n, and p as words, numbers, and powers of ten.
  • Convert units using the factor-label method. I will require you to use the FL method, even for simple conversions. (I will give you conversion factors between SI and non-SI units.)
  • Explain the difference between precision and accuracy.
  • Give a examples of systematic error and random error.
  • Add, subtract, multiply and divide numbers in scientific notation, with or without a calculator.
  • Convert scientific notation numbers to regular decimal numbers, and vice versa.
  • Determine the number of significant figures in a given measurement.
  • Correctly round the result of a calculation, based on the significant figures or number of decimal places of the measurements going into the computation.
  • Explain why having too many (unwarranted) significant figures in a written measurement is bad.

Be sure to bring your calculator!

 

 

Here is a practice test, an actual quiz I gave a previous year. For the most effective practice, do this with your notes closed, as if it were the real test, and check your answers afterwards. Give yourself 10 minutes. Afterwards, check your answers.

Here is another practice test, and here are the answers.

Take this online significant figures quiz. Repeat until you get 100%.