Practice question · Multiple choice
Your electronic balance reads 0.3 g with nothing on it. You then weigh ten samples without fixing this. What kind of error infects the data, and what repairs it?
Hints
- Does the 0.3 g wobble from reading to reading, or push every reading the same way?
- Averaging cancels only what fluctuates. A constant shift survives any number of repetitions.
Show the answer
D. A systematic offset: subtract 0.3 g from every reading
Why
A zero offset biases every reading identically, invisible to averaging, invisible to error bars, deadly to accuracy. The cures are calibration habits: tare before use, check against known masses. Precision guards against scatter; calibration guards against being consistently wrong.
Practise Calibration and Systematic Errors
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More questions on Calibration and Systematic Errors
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