Study Guide: Properties of Matter Test Lessons 1 – 4: Matter and Density - KEY
I. Review all Properties of Matter documents on Mrs. Pickard’s website and make corrections and improvements to your work
II. Review Stations 1.2, 1.6, and 1.7 in your Inquiry 1.1 Packet (Our Ideas about Matter).
Answer the questions now that you have new knowledge about mass, volume, density, characteristic properties.
III. Revisit the readings and/or CSR logs for the following readings:
What is Matter?
Useful Calculations
Mass or Weight
Why Did the Titanic Float?
Where Did Matter Come From?
Density as a Characteristic Property
Archimedes’ Crowning Moment
Air Heads
Sciencesaurus #59 - 68
IV. Review your lab sheets and journal (class notes, warm-ups, etc.)
V. Be able to define and use the following terms:
Matter
Mass
Volume
Density
VI. Complete the attached Review materials.
Property
Characteristic Property
Float/Sink
Buoyancy
Density Practice: Complete the following practice problems; make sure to show all your work!
1. a) A block of wood has the following measurements: length = 4cm, width = 2cm, depth = 3cm, mass = 20g. What is the density of this block of wood?
3
3
3
b) Why does the wood float in water? Explain?
2. A jeweler is asked to identify an unknown piece of dark metal which may be gold. The measurements of the piece are
5cm by 5cm by 6cm. The mass is 810g. Is the metal gold? Explain your answer.
3
3
3

3. Read the following table and calculate the density for each sample of vinegar, then answer the questions that follow.
Density Sample #
1
Mass (g)
24.7
Volume (mL)
25 0.99 g/mL
2 49.5 50 0.99 g/mL
3 147.6 150 0.98 g/mL a) How did the volumes of the three samples compare?
b) How did the masses of the three samples compare?
c) How did the densities between the samples compare?
d) Explain why you got the results that you did.
e) Vinegar is made mostly of water. Knowing the density of water, explain why this makes sense.
4. Circle the best choice for completing the sentence. a) If the volume is the same for two objects, the greater the mass the (bigger / smaller) the density.
Explain why you chose your answer.

b) If the mass is the same for two objects, the greater the volume the (bigger / smaller) the density.
Explain why you chose your answer.

Name______KEY_____________ Date________ Period______
1.
For each of the following statements, indicate whether the statement is TRUE or FALSE.
2.
Then, for each TRUE statement, describe something we did in class, or read, that connects to the point. Explain how this activity, warm-up, measurement, etc. illustrates the point.
3.
For each FALSE statement, correct the statement so that it is TRUE, and do as directed in #2.
A.
__F___Two objects have the same density if they have the same mass.
Two objects have the same density if they are made of the same substance. In Investigating Mass, several of the objects had the same mass, but very different densities because they were different substances and different sizes.
B.
__F___Things float in water because they are lightweight.
Things float in water because they are less dense than water. In Inquiry 2.1, the density of water was calculated as 1 g/ml. Objects whose densities were less than 1 g/cm 3 (wax, white plastic) floated during the demonstration (Using Density to Make Predictions), regardless of their weight.
C.
__F___Density of a solid is expressed as cm 3
Density of a solid is expressed as g/cm 3 , or Volume of a solid is expressed as cm 3 . Any time we have calculated density of a solid object, we have divided mass by volume or grams by cubic centimeters, resulting in the units g/cm 3 . **The units used ultimately depend on the way in which you measure the volume.
D.
__F___Two objects have the same density if they have the same volume.
Two objects have the same density if they are made of the same substance, and therefore have the same ratio between mass and volume. In 2.2 and Using Density to Make Predictions the wax and

white plastic blocks had very similar volumes, but their densities are different because their masses differ and they are made of different substances.
E.
__T___Two objects have the same density if they are made of the same substance.
In a warm-up we examined the density of a copper cube and a copper cylinder. Even though they had different masses and volumes they had the same density because they are made of the same substance and density is a characteristic property of matter.
F.
__T___Density is the amount of matter in a unit of volume.
Mass is defined as the amount of matter in an object. Density is defined as the mass in a unit of volume (usually 1 cm 3 or 1 ml). Therefore, density could also be defined as amount of matter in a unit of volume.
G.
___T__Density is a characteristic property.
In 2.4 substances were identified by calculating the densities of the unknown objects, and comparing those densities to a list of know substances and their densities. If you can identify a substance based on a property, it is a characteristic property.
H.
__F___Density depends on the size of the object.
No matter the size of the object, the density of the substance it is made of is always the same. In a warm up we measured a copper cylinder and a copper block which were different sizes, but they had the same density.
This principle applies to liquids, too, as seen in Inquiry 2.1,
Measuring the Mass of Water.

I.
___T__Using the formula L x W x H to find volume works for any block, even if it’s not a cube
A cube has 6 equal sides, but we were able to use this formula to calculate volume of a variety of rectangular blocks in several different Inquiries (Investigating Volume, 2.2, etc).
J.
__F___Things float in water because they are small.
Things float because they have a low density or Things float because they have a small mass compared to their volume. That is, if an object floats in water, the density is less than one, which means the mass was smaller than the volume. This was observed in Using Density to
Make Predictions and you read about this in “Why did the Titanic
Float?”
K.
__F___Two objects have different masses if one displaces more water than the other.
Two objects have different volumes if one displaces more water than the other. Water is displaced by the amount of space an object takes up, which is volume. In Investigating Volume and
Inquiry 2.3, we found larger objects displace more water than smaller objects, no matter their masses. Also, in the Archimedes reading, we learned that two equally massed objects (the crown and the hunk of gold) displaced different amounts of water.
L.
__F___Density of a liquid is expressed as g/cm3. Density of a liquid is expressed as g/mL.
We learned about this in Inquiry 2.3, if you measure the volume in mL then the density will be expressed as g/mL.