A student placed a piece of metal with A mass of 14 g into a graduated cylinder containing 20 mL of water. The water level rose to 27 mL. What is the density of the metal?

Question

A. 2/gm3

B. 7 g/cm3

C. 14 g/cm3

D. 20 g/cm3

Answer 1

Hi Cleo H.,

So, the water level rose 7 mL. You know that that increase was due only to the volume of the metal added, right (or the problem would have specified initially hot metal, and increase of temperature of the water, etc., etc.)? So density is just mass/volume or 14 g/7 mL. Now, have some fun. What metal might that be? If you check out a chart of "density of elements" you immediately see that no individual element has density 2.0 .... So, what two elements (both cheap, and used in aircraft skins) might be mixed here to achieve exactly density 2.0?

-- Cheers, - Mr. d.