Answers to Study Guide M1: The Basics
We’re having a test next week, folks! If you can answer these questions, you will do just fine on
it –
1. What is an atom? What is a molecule?
a. An atom is the smallest “chemical unit of matter”. This means that an atom is a
piece of a pure substance, like gold, hydrogen or oxygen.
b. A molecule is when two or more atoms combine. Water is a molecule containing
two atoms of hydrogen and one atom of oxygen.
2. Is H2O an atom or a molecule? Explain.
a. It is a molecule. We know this because the letters mean there are atoms of
hydrogen and oxygen bonded (stuck) together. We can separate the hydrogen
from the oxygen if we cause electricity to flow into a class of water.
3. What metric units would we use to measure these:
a. Mass gram
b. Volume liter
c. Length meter
d. The amount of matter in a Snickers bar? Gram (this is mass)
e. The space taken up by a cube of butter? Liter (this is volume)
f. The distance between your house and Miracle Ranch? Meter (this is length)
4. What are the metric prefix units for small things? (Things smaller than a gram, liter, or
meter?) milli, centi, deci
5. What are the metric prefix units for big things? (Things bigger than a gram, liter, or
meter?) deka, hecto, kilo
6. What is the value of each of these prefix units? Show in decimal numbers and words.
a. Centi 0.01 “one one hundredth” or 1/100
b. Milli 0.001 “one one thousandth” or 1/1000
c. Deci 0.1 “one tenth” or 1/10
d. Hecto 100. “one hundred” (see where that decimal goes?)
e. Deka 10. “ten”
f. Kilo 1000. “one thousand”
7. Fill in these blanks:
a. _100______ centimeters in a meter
b. ___10____ millimeters in a centimeter
c. __10______ decimeters in a meter
d. __1000____ meters in a kilometer
e. __10_____ meters in a dekameter
f. __100_____ meters in a hectometer
8. What metric unit for length would you use to measure these:
a. The distance from Seattle to Los Angeles kilometer
b. The length of your fingernail millimeters
c. The height of a doorway meters
d. The distance from the barn to the lake hectometers
e. The length of your cat’s tail centimeters
9. I will give you a ruler and ask you to draw lines. For example, I might ask you to draw a
line that is 5 centimeters long, and then ask you how many millimeters that is.
10. Label the decimal places:
0.0.0.1.0.0.0.
Milli
Centi
Deci Base
deka hecto kilo
11. What is concentration? Give an example of something that is very concentrated, and
something that is not as concentrated.
Concentration is the amount of stuff dissolved in a particular volume of another substance. For
instance, a mug of cocoa that has 3 tablespoons of chocolate in 8 ounces of hot water is less
concentrated than one that has 10 tablespoons of cocoa in 8 oz of hot water.