Q&A for How to Calculate Precision

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How do you measure accuracy?

Community Answer

Accuracy is a measure of how close you are to the known, expected value of what you are measuring. If you have a known weight of 10 kg, for example, and you put it on a scale and the scale says "9.2," then your scale is accurate within 0.8 kg.

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How do I calculate the level of precision of an equipment? It's an electrolyte analyser

Community Answer

Use it to take several measurements and then follow the directions in this article.

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Question

How do you know if a measurement is precise?

Community Answer

When the mean absolute deviation or the standard range is as close to zero as possible.

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If the examples are like these 1s, 2s, 2s, 1s, 0s, 3s, 2s, 2s, 1s, 1s and average is 1.5, so is this precise?

Community Answer

There is never a direct answer to the question "is this precise?" The question is, "Is it precise enough?" Your data has a range of plus or minus 3 seconds, an average deviation of 0.7 seconds. Do you think that is precise enough for what you're using the data for?

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Question

What is the more precise measurement from the pair 54.1cm and 54.16?

Community Answer

This is a different use of the word "precise" than used in this article. For your question, "precise" means the smallest measure possible, so 54.16 is a more precise measure than 54.1.

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How do I find the accuracy and precision of the number 750.5?

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Your accuracy is plus-or-minus your rounding factor, which is 0.01. There is no precision involved, because you do not have replicates if this number.

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Question

What is the precision of 14050?

Community Answer

This is a use of the word "precise" that really means how specific the measurement is. It's like the old "rounding off" that you probably learned in third grade. This number is rounded to the nearest 10, so that is its level of precision.

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What's the conclusion made after calculating the standard deviation as a way of determining the precision?

Community Answer

Every single measurement you make could be ± 0.88lbs different from what you see.

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Question

51.03 is more accurate than 51.032. True or false?

Donagan

Top Answerer

If you're comparing 51.03 to 51.032, the latter has been measured to the nearest one-thousandth of a unit, while the former has been measured only to the nearest one-hundredth of a unit. So 51.032 is more accurate.

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What is more precise, the 2.70 cm or 2.69?

Donagan

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They are equally precise, each expressed to the nearest one-hundredth.

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