Questions using significant figures and scientific notation
Practice using significant figures and scientific notation for combined science students.
The PowerPoint resource guides students through the key principles, with worked examples and practice questions. The worksheet provides further practice, with answers, in a variety of everyday and scientific contexts.
After using this resource, students should understand:
- that answers cannot be more precise than the initial measurements
- that rounding numbers to 1 or 2 significant figures can help them to quickly estimate an answer
- that scientific notation avoids using lots of zeros by expressing numbers to the power of 10
- how to multiply and divide using scientific notation.
An example of one of the questions from the worksheet:
5.
During the selective breeding process, semen is collected from prize-winning bulls and used to artificially inseminate large numbers of cows. Each ejaculation produces a 5 ml semen sample containing 1 billion sperm cells. The sample is diluted, frozen, and stored in tubes known as ‘straws’. Each 25 ml straw contains approximately 15 million sperm cells.
How many straws can be produced from one ejaculation?
How many sperm are left over?
