HSC Stuff > HSC Physics
Significant figures
Duarashid:
Hi, just wondering if you get marked down if you donot use the correct sig figs in your final answer.
If so, what are the rules?
Thankyou!
jamonwindeyer:
--- Quote from: Duarashid on October 28, 2018, 08:11:55 pm ---Hi, just wondering if you get marked down if you donot use the correct sig figs in your final answer.
If so, what are the rules?
Thankyou!
--- End quote ---
I never applied a rule in my HSC, I just did what felt sensible (which was usually like 2 decimal places), or to something that let me express it in nm or km or whatever. I never lost marks on rounding, I think as long as you are sensible you are totally fine ;D
The 'proper' rule though is that you give the same number of significant questions as the least you are given in the question (since this represents the variance in your input data, and your output data should suggest a similar variance) :)
jazcstuart:
I don't know about physics, but for chemistry there is one mark allocated in the whole exam for correct rounding, but we don't know which question it will be. So if it's the same for physics, you could only lose one mark for the whole exam, however the downside is that you could round to the correct sig figs in all your answers except the one where the mark is allocated, and still lose the mark.
So I would say definitely try to round to the correct sig figs for every question if you can :)
Duarashid:
Okay! Thankyou!
I just realised that most times the least significant figures it’s usually 1 sig fig I.e. 9 x10^3 or something is the smallest value you use to get your answer. But if your answer is something like: 3.4556 you wouldn’t want to round to 3, it would make more sense to round to 3.5 right? What would you do in this situation?
Mod Edit: Merged posts :)
jazcstuart:
--- Quote from: Duarashid on October 30, 2018, 07:07:48 pm ---Okay! Thankyou!
I just realised that most times the least significant figures it’s usually 1 sig fig I.e. 9 x10^3 or something is the smallest value you use to get your answer. But if your answer is something like: 3.4556 you wouldn’t want to round to 3, it would make more sense to round to 3.5 right? What would you do in this situation?
Mod Edit: Merged posts :)
--- End quote ---
I'm not sure sorry, I know in chemistry most values they give you to use in calculations are to 3 or 4 sig figs. I think if they only gave you 1 sig fig in the given values they would not be testing rounding for that question, but do whatever you think is best.
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