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General Physics I
Quarter 1 – Module 1:
Units and Measurement
General Physics I – Grade 12
Alternative Delivery Mode
Quarter 1 – Module 1: Units and Measurement
First Edition, 2020

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Cherry Len C. Briones
Gladys lo M. Bondoc
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General Physics I
Quarter 1 – Module 1:
Units and Measurement
Introductory Message
For the facilitator:

Welcome to the General Physics I for Grade 12 Alternative Delivery Mode (ADM)
Module on Units and Measurement!

This module was collaboratively designed, developed and reviewed by educators

both from public and private institutions to assist you, the teacher or facilitator in
helping the learners meet the standards set by the K to 12 Curriculum while
overcoming their personal, social, and economic constraints in schooling.

This learning resource hopes to engage the learners into guided and independent
learning activities at their own pace and time. Furthermore, this also aims to help
learners acquire the needed 21st century skills while taking into consideration
their needs and circumstances.

In addition to the material in the main text, you will also see this box in the body of
the module:

Notes to the Teacher

This contains helpful tips or strategies
that will help you in guiding the learners.

As a facilitator you are expected to orient the learners on how to use this module.
You also need to keep track of the learners' progress while allowing them to
manage their own learning. Furthermore, you are expected to encourage and assist
the learners as they do the tasks included in the module.

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For the learner:

Welcome to General Physics I for Grade 12 Alternative Delivery Mode (ADM) Module
on Units and Measurement!

The hand is one of the most symbolized part of the human body. It is often used to
depict skill, action and purpose. Through our hands we may learn, create and
accomplish. Hence, the hand in this learning resource signifies that you as a
learner is capable and empowered to successfully achieve the relevant
competencies and skills at your own pace and time. Your academic success lies in
your own hands!

This module was designed to provide you with fun and meaningful opportunities
for guided and independent learning at your own pace and time. You will be
enabled to process the contents of the learning resource while being an active
learner.

This module has the following parts and corresponding icons:

What I Need to Know This will give you an idea of the skills or
competencies you are expected to learn in
the module.

What I Know This part includes an activity that aims to

check what you already know about the
lesson to take. If you get all the answers
correct (100%), you may decide to skip this
module.

What’s In This is a brief drill or review to help you link

the current lesson with the previous one.

What’s New In this portion, the new lesson will be

introduced to you in various ways such as a
story, a song, a poem, a problem opener, an
activity or a situation.

What is It This section provides a brief discussion of

the lesson. This aims to help you discover
and understand new concepts and skills.

What’s More This comprises activities for independent

practice to solidify your understanding and
skills of the topic. You may check the
answers to the exercises using the Answer
Key at the end of the module.

What I Have Learned This includes questions or blank

sentence/paragraph to be filled in to
process what you learned from the lesson.

What I Can Do This section provides an activity which will

help you transfer your new knowledge or

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 skill into real life situations or concerns.

Assessment This is a task which aims to evaluate your

level of mastery in achieving the learning
competency.

Additional Activities In this portion, another activity will be given

to you to enrich your knowledge or skill of
the lesson learned. This also tends retention
of learned concepts.

Answer Key This contains answers to all activities in the

module.

At the end of this module you will also find:

References This is a list of all sources used in

developing this module.

The following are some reminders in using this module:

1. Use the module with care. Do not put unnecessary mark/s on any part of
the module. Use a separate sheet of paper in answering the exercises.
2. Don‟t forget to answer What I Know before moving on to the other activities
included in the module.
3. Read the instruction carefully before doing each task.
4. Observe honesty and integrity in doing the tasks and checking your
answers.
5. Finish the task at hand before proceeding to the next.
6. Return this module to your teacher/facilitator once you are through with it.
If you encounter any difficulty in answering the tasks in this module, do not
hesitate to consult your teacher or facilitator. Always bear in mind that you are
not alone.

We hope that through this material, you will experience meaningful learning
and gain deep understanding of the relevant competencies. You can do it!

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 What I Need to Know

This module was designed and written to help students understand units and
measurement. This lesson includes system of measurement, conversion of units
and sources and types of errors in measurement. The lesson has provided with
examples and instructions. The module consists of different activities to boost the
interest of the students and engage in a self-learning process.

After going through the module, you are expected to:

 Solve measurement problems involving conversion of units, expression

of measurement in scientific notation
 Differentiate accuracy from precision
 Differentiate the three sources of errors in measurement

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 What I Know

Choose the letter of the best answer. Write the chosen letter on a separate sheet of
paper.

1. Which of the following is equal to 10 meters?

a. 10,000 cm c. 0.001 km
b. 32.8 ft d. 380.6 inches

2. It evolved from the metric system, provides additional and more accurate
units of measurements. Its features include decimalization and the use of
prefixes.

a. English System c. International System of Units

b. Metric System of Units d. CGS System of Units

3. This type of error may result when weighing balances are used without being
calibrated.

a. Systematic Error c. Random Error

b. Gross Error d. Indeterminate Error

4. Which of the following statements exactly describe the picture below?

a. High Precision, Low accuracy

b. High Precision, High Accuracy
c. Low precision, High Accuracy
d. Low precision, Low Accuracy

5. 0.000000001097 is can be written in scientific notation as

__________________.

a. 1.097 x c. 10.97x10-9
b. b. 1.097x10-8 d. 1.097x10-7

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Lesson

1 Units and Measurement

Units and measurement will be the first lesson in General Physics I. This will
serves as the foundation of the topics to be tackled for the whole quarter. In this
lesson, you will be able to learn Systems of measurement, difference between
accuracy and precision, and the different sources of errors in measurement.

What’s In

As we already know, Physics is defined as the study of matter and energy and their
interactions. It is subdivided into classical and modern physics. The main branches
of classical physics are mechanics, heat and thermodynamics, optics, electricity
and magnetism, and sound, while modern physics deals with x-rays, nuclear
physics and radioactivity, and atomic physics and the theory of relativity.

For this quarter, we will tackle about the classical physics, specifically mechanics,
and heat and thermodynamics; wherein mechanics deals with inertia, forces,
motion, energy and properties of matter. The area of heat includes temperature
measurement and thermodynamics is the study of transformation involving heat
and work.

What’s New

According to William Thomson, known as Lord Kelvin, “when you can measure
what you are speaking about and express it in numbers, you know something
about it; but when you cannot express it in numbers, your knowledge is of a
meager and unsatisfactorily kind; it may be the beginning of knowledge, but you
have scarcely, in your thoughts, advanced to the stage of a science”. With his line,
he emphasized the importance of measurement, meaning, for every physical
quantities you must express it in numbers. It will never be enough to describe
something as, “tall” or “short”, “many” or “few”.

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Before the discussion proper, I want you to answer the following question:

 How tall are you?

 How far is your school from your home?
 What is your weight?

How did you express your height? Is it in feet, inches or in meters? What about the
distance you travel from home to school, did you express it in kilometers or in
miles? And your weight, did you express it in kilograms or pounds?

What is It

Physicists perform experiments to test hypotheses. Conclusions in experiment are

derived from measurements. And physicists use numbers to describe
measurements. Such a number is called a physical quantity. However, a physical
quantity would make sense to everyone when compared to a reference standard.
For example, when one says, that his or her height is 1.5 meters, this means that
one‟s height is 1.5 times a meter stick (or a tape measure that is one meter long).
The meter stick is here considered to be the reference standard. Thus, stating that
one‟s height is 1.5 is not as informative.

Since 1960 the system of units used by scientists and engineers is the “metric
system”, which is officially known as the “International System” or SI units
(abbreviation for its French term, Système International).

To make sure that scientists from different parts of the world understand the same
thing when referring to a measurement, standards have been defined for
measurements of length, time, and mass.

Length

1 meter is defined as the distance travelled by light in a vacuum in

1/299,792,458 second. Based on the definition that the speed of light is exactly
299,792,458 m/s.

Time

1 second is defined as 9,192,631,770 cycles of the microwave radiation due

to the transition between the two lowest energy states of the cesium atom. This is
measured from an atomic clock using this transition.

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Mass

1 kg is defined to be the mass of a cylinder of platinum-iridium alloy at the

International Bureau of weights and measures (Sèvres, France).

Table 1: The Seven SI Fundamental Units

Quantity Symbol Unit

Length L Meter
Mass M Kilogram
Time T Seconds
Electric current I Ampere
Temperature T Kelvin
Amount of substance N Mole
Luminous intensity Candela

Conversion of units
Discuss that a few countries use the British system of units (e.g., the United
States). However, the conversion between the British system of units and SI units
has been defined exactly as follows:

Length: 1 inch = 2.54 cm

Force: 1 pound = 4.448221615260 newtons

Table 3: System International Prefix

PREFIX SYMBOL FACTOR

Atto A
Femto F
Pico P
Nano N
Micro Μ
Milli M
Centi C
Deci D
Deka Da
Hecto H
Kilo K
Mega M
Giga G
Tera T
Peta P
Exa E

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 Table 3: Conversion Table

Unit Conversion (Temperature)

 Fahrenheit to Celsius

 Celsius to Fahrenheit

( x 1.8) + 32

 Celsius to kelvin

+ 273.15

 Fahrenheit to Rankine

+ 460

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 In order to understand deeper the concepts that have been discussed above,
here are sample problems.

EXAMPLE NO. 1:
1. A snail moves 1cm every 20 seconds. What is this in in/s?

In the first line, 1.0cm/20s was multiplied by the ratio of 1in to 2.54 cm
(which is equal to one). By strategically putting the unit of cm in the
denominator, we are able to remove this unit and retain inches. However,
based on the calculator, the conversion involves several digits.

In the second line, we divided 1.0 by 20 and retained two digits and rewrote
in terms of a factor 102. The final answer is then rounded off to retain 2
figures.

EXAMPLE NO 2:

A jeepney tried to overtake a car. The jeepney moves at 75km/hour, convert this to
the British system (feet per second)?

75 x x = 246, 000

First we need to convert ‘kilometer’ to feet. 1 kilometer is equal to 1000 meters and 1
meter is equivalent to 3.28 ft. take note that cancellation of unit should take place.

246, 000 x = 68.33

Second step is converting hour to seconds. 1 hour is equivalent to 3,600

seconds. Ever wonder why we divide instead of multiplying? The „hr‟ in
246,000 ft/hr is in denominator so to cancel the unit you must put 1hr on

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the numerator. You can‟t cancel a unit if they are both place in numerator
or both places in denominator.

Scientific Notation
It is a way of expressing numbers that are too big or too small to be
conveniently written in decimal form.

Important Rules
1. The base is always 10
2. The exponent is a non-zero integer (may be positive or negative )
3. The absolute value of the coefficient is greater than or equal to 1 and strictly
less than 10
4. The coefficient carries the sign (+ or -)
5. The mantissa carries the rest of significant digits.

Example:
a. Transform 45,000,000 to scientific notation.

45,000,000 = 4.5 x107

Why did we write 7 as exponent? We move the decimal point until it is after the first
non-zero.

b. Transform 0.000000045 to scientific notation?

0.00000045= 4.5 x107

Why did we write negative 7 as exponent? We move the decimal point until it is after
the first non-zero and we move it from left to right so we will use negative exponent.

Accuracy and Precision

Accuracy indicates how close a measurement is to the true and accepted value
while precision refers to the closeness of the measurements within a set of data. To
assess the precision in a data set, several trials are made during experimentation.
The obtained data should be close to each other regardless of the true value.

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 Figure 1: Dart representation of accuracy and precision.

Source of Errors in Measurements

1. Systematic or determinate error

Systematic errors are errors that can be attributed to definite causes. They are
often reproducible and an affect the accuracy of the result. It may be classified as
operative, method and instrumental.

 Operative Error (Personal error) –caused by the incompetence of the

experimenter

Example:
A color-blind experimenter performing color-dependent experiment

 Method Error – caused by non-ideal chemical or physical behavior of the

reaction system.

Example:
A reaction of interest does not go to completion
Impurities are present in the sample being tested

 Instrumental Error – caused by failures or imperfections of the measuring

devices

Example:
Using weigh balance without being calibrated

2. Random or indeterminate error

Errors that is inherent to the measuring apparatus. They cannot be reduced
by the experimenter especially when finer measures are obtained. It affects the
precision of the measurements

Example:
Uncertainties in burettes or pipettes expressed as ± value.

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 3. Gross error
Gross errors are those errors that are severe enough that the measurement
or the entire analysis altogether has to be repeated.
Example:
Unnoticed spill of a substance while measuring its mass.

What’s More

Activity 1.1 Identifying units

Using the word hunt below, find all British units. Write your answer by category on
the box provided then write its equivalent SI unit.

T A N X N C B O M E
I E I D O D E N E T
E D N U O P O E T R
H B C E S T O N E O
N D H E D A R N R I
E T F E G A L L O N
R A O T A P R O P A
H O O N A O N D C C
A H T S M I L E M R
F G C O U N C E N E

Temperature Length Weight Volume Area

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 What I Have Learned

1. Physical quantities may either be fundamental or derived.

2. There are 7 fundamental quantities: length, ass, time, temperature,
luminous intensity, electric current, and the amount of substance.
3. For calculated or measured results, the correct number of significant
figures must be used
4. Precision is the closeness of each measurement within the data set while
accuracy is the closeness of the measurement to the true value.

What I Can Do

Direction: Think deeper and use critical thinking. Answer the following
items.

1. Three experimental mass values of a certain objects were obtained:

54.66 g, 54.67g, and 54.668 g. If the accepted mass of the object is
54.6678 g, are the measurements accurate? Are they precise? Explain
your answer.

2. Four students performed an experiment to measure the density of

aluminum (27g/ml). Which data is accurate but not precise?

Ana Alex Sab John

2.924 g/ml 2.316 g/ml 2. 649 g/ml 2.701 g/ml
2.923 g/ml 2.527 g/ml 2.731 g/ml 2.699 g/ml
2.925 g/ml 2.941 g/ml 2.695 g/ml 2.702 g/ml
2.926 g/ml 2.136 g/ml 2.742 g/ml 2.698 g/ml

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 Assessment

Direction: On the space provided, write the following numbers in scientific

Notation.

__________________________1. 2,650,000,000

__________________________2. 0.00000265

__________________________3. 3,409,000

__________________________4. 0.000765

__________________________5. 0.00000000456

Direction: Do the following conversion using dimensional analysis.

a. 4.00 in2 to cm2

b. 19.79 g to mg
c. -14 ⁰C to ⁰F
d. 10 yards to inches
e. 375 K to ⁰F

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Direction: Determine what type of errors in measurements (Systematic Error,
Random Error or Gross error)

______________1. A plastic tape measure becomes slightly stretched over the years,
resulting in measurements that are slightly too high.

______________2. Scale that doesn‟t read zero when nothing is on it.

______________3. Taking a volume read in in a flask and you read the value from
different angle each time.

______________4. A person thinks that the ¾” mark on a ruler is the 2/3” mark

______________5. Measuring wind velocity depends of height and time at which a

measurement is taken.

______________6. The experimenter forgets to push the tare button before contents
are placed in the container.

______________7. The experimenter did not notice that the sample is spilling.

______________8. Measuring length with metal ruler will give a different result at a
cld temperature than hot temperature due to thermal expansion

______________9. The experimenter did not follow the correct procedure in

measuring the sample

______________10. The experimenter used an inappropriate measuring device

Additional Activities

Direction: On the space provided, write your complete solution neatly and
box your final answer.

1. Coach Sally brought 32L of water to the football game and she
divided the water equally between 8 coolers. How many milliliters of water
did Coach Sally put in each cooler?
2. At science camp, the kitchen served half of their strawberries with
breakfast. After dinner, they put the remaining 5,270 g of strawberries did
science camp start with?

3. Erin has 95 minutes to complete a test at school. The test starts at

1:59 PM and Susan has volleyball practice at 4:00 PM. How much time will
Erin have between the end of the test and the beginning of volleyball
practice?

4. Alastair and Noah go hiking. Noah brings 7/10 liter of water while
Alastair brings 500 mL of water. How many more milliliters of water did
Noah bring than Alastair?

5. A barrel of juice is filled by 306 bottles of 0.7 liters. How many bottles
of 300 mL would be filled with the same amount of juice?
6. Assume there are 100 million passenger cars in the UAE and that the
average fuel consumption is 20mi/gal of gasoline. If average distance
traveled by each car is 16,900km/yr, how much gasoline in liters would be
saved per year if the average fuel consumption could be increase to
25mi/gal?

7. You want to buy additional land with the shape of rectangle that has
a width of 2,500 cm and length is 0.065 km. How much in peso you need to
pay if the price is Php 150,000/hectare?
8. Peter planted 220kg of potatoes and harvested twelve times more of
them. How many tons of potatoes has he harvested?

9. How much water in hectoliters flows within one hour through the
pipe with a diameter of 42mm at an average flow rate of 1.5 m/s?

10. The hose has an inside diameter of 4c and is 25 m long. How long
from the opening of the tap will it takes for the water to flow from the other
end f the hose if there is 30L of water per second pressed into it?
What I What's More What's can
Know I do
1. B 1. The data
2. C collected are
3. A accurate and
4. C
5. A precise
2. Sab‟s data
is accurate
but not
precise
Assessment Assessment
A. C.
1. 2.65 x 1. Systematic Error
2. 2.65 x 2. Systematic Error
3. 3.409 x 3. Random Error
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4. 7.65 x
4. Systematic Error
5. 4.56 x
5. Random Error
B. 6. Systematic Error
2 7. Gross Error
1) 25.81 cm
2) 19,790 mg 8. Random Error
3) 6.8 ⁰F 9. Gross Error
4) 360 in 10. Gross Error
5) 215..33 ⁰F
Answer Key
References

Bland,J. Martin, and Douglas G. Altman (1996). “Statstics notes:

Measurement Error.” BMJ 313.7059:744
Dodge, Y. (2003). The Oxford Dictionary of Statistical Terms. OUP.ISBN 0-
19-920613-9.
Bayquen. A.V., and Pena, G.T “ Exploring Life Through Science”, Phoenix
Publishing House
School Tutoring Academy (2012)
https://schooltutoring.com/help/tag/what-is-gross-error/
WatElectrical.com (2019) https://www.watelectrical.com/different-types-of-
errors-in-measurement-and-measurement-error-calculation/

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