ACCURACY AND PRECISION LEARNING ACTIVITY SHEET 1.

3
In everyday speech, accuracy and precision are often used interchangeably. However,
their scientific meanings are quite different. Let us see how much you understand accuracy
and precision by answering the succeeding activity.
Accuracy is a measure of how close a measurement is to the correct or accepted value of the
quantity being measured. Precision is a measure of how close a series of measurements are to one
another. Precision is independent of accuracy. That means it is possible to be very precise but not very
accurate, and it is also possible to be accurate without
being precise.
For instance, using a digital thermometer, you measured your body temperature three
times and recorded the following temperatures: 350C, 34.90C, and 35.10C. However, your
actual body temperature is 370C. Your measurements are precise because they are close to
each other. However, they are not accurate because the readings differ from your actual
temperature by about 20C.
A classic way of demonstrating the difference between precision and accuracy is with
a dartboard. Think of the bulls-eye (center) of the dartboard as the true value. The closer the
darts land to the bulls-eye, the more accurate they are.

• In Figure A, the darts are neither close to the bulls-eye nor close to each other. There
is neither accuracy nor precision.
• In Figure B, the darts land very close together, but far from the bulls-eye. There is
precision, but no accuracy.
• In Figure C, the darts are both very close to the bulls-eye and to each other. There is
both precision and accuracy.
ACTIVITY 1
Instruction: Read and analyze the situation
about accuracy and precision and answer the
questions that follow.
Situation: John, Ted, Mark and Chris played
with darts. Each was given three darts and
tried to
hit the bull’s-eye in the dartboard. The illustration below shows the distribution of their darts
on the dart board.
1. Who has high accuracy but low precision? ___________________
2. Who has high accuracy and high precision? __________________
3. Who has low accuracy and low precision? ___________________
4.Who has low accuracy and but high precision? ________________
ACTIVITY 2
Instruction: To understand accuracy and precision further, read the situations below and answer the
given questions.
In a laboratory, you obtained a weight measurement of 3.2 kg for a particular substance. You weighed
it five times and obtained the same value each time. However, the actual weight of the substance is 6
kg.
a. Is your measurement accurate? Explain.
b. Is your measurement precise? Explain.