Don't forget what 3.B. says before that: "Unless otherwise requested." Hopefully what units the answer should be in would be stated directly in the problem or on an answer sheet. If not, I'd recommend asking the proctor directly. If that doesn't work, I'd go ahead and just convert it to an SI or SI-derived unit (in the example you gave, you would convert the pressure in atmospheres to pascals (N/m^2)).Srama wrote:If I want to follow Guideline 3.B which states that answer should be in metric and approximate significant figures, Can anyone tell me how would you express the final answer for Boyles law problem.
Also, Is the answer expected to be adjusted to scientific notation for full credits?
For Eg:A container holds 2L of helium. When the pressure is reduced to 2.5 atmospheres and the volume in the container increases to 12L, what was the initial pressure exerted on the container?
As for scientific notation, there doesn't seem to be anything in the rules addressing it, so you would only have to do it if explicitly instructed to do so on a test. There are a couple of cases, however, in which it would be a good idea to automatically put the answer in scientific notation even if not required to:
- If giving a very large or very small numerical answer (Example: The initial pressure would be 15 atmospheres, or 1.5x10^6 pascals, rather than writing 1,500,000 pascals)
- If you need to do so to express the correct number of sig figs (Example: if you need to write 300 with two significant figures, one typical way of doing this is instead writing it in scientific notation as 3.0 x10^2)
