Study Guide for Scientific Method Test

- Study the notes we took in class

- Reread chapter selections

- Study worksheets we never collected, which you graded yourself in class.

These are SOME questions you should be able to answer if you have been studying.

(10-15 minutes EVERY NIGHT is all it takes to be an expert)

1) What is the definition of the scientific method? What does systematic mean?

2) Why is it important to do things systematically? (Don’t put easy answer… explain)

3) What are the seven steps of the scientific method, in order?

4) What is a mnemonic? What is a good mnemonic for the seven steps we learned?

5) Asking a question is not good enough. You have to learn to ask the right question.

Why? (Don’t JUST give an example… explain why first. Then you can give example)

6) What is a hypothesis? What three characteristics does a good hypothesis have to have?

7) What is the definition of experiment? What is the definition of a factor?

8) What is a variable? What is a control experiment?

9) Why is it important to run two identical experiments at the same time? (Another way

to say this is… Why can’t you just test the variable by itself?)

10) What does record mean? Why is it important to record data?

11) What does analyze mean, as we talked about it in class? (Don’t put a dictionary

definition. We said it meant more than that in the scientific method)

12) What is a conclusion? What 3 parts are necessary for a good conclusion?

13) Why is it important to repeat your work? Why is it important to share your work?

Bold words are spelling vocabulary words. There may be others I overlooked.

There may also be other questions related to what we learned that I didn’t include.

You should also know the “definitions” of the following words…

kilo- hecto- deka- basic unit deci- centi- milli-

1000x 100x 10x 1 0.1x 0.01x 0.001x

b.u. b.u. b.u. b.u. b.u. b.u. b.u.

You should know the definition of the following words, and their related “key words”…

meter = basic unit for distanceliter= basic unit for volumegram = b.u. for mass

(length, width, height, thickness)(amount of space, volume, how much) (weight, mass, heaviness)

You don’t need to know the definitions of the following, but you should know how “big or small” they are in relation to the basic unit…

Tera- Giga- Mega- basic unit micro- nano- pico-

1 trillion 1 billion 1 million 1 millionth 1 billionth 1 trillionth

X b.u.X b.u. X b.u. X b.u. X b.u X b.u

Knowing all these things....

- you should be able to identify the correct units to use for a given problem to measure

- you should know the correct prefix to use for the size of the object being measured

- you should be able to convert from one unit to the next

You should also be able to find...

- the length of an object by measuring accurately

- the volume of a regular object and the correct units to measure with

- the volume of an irregular object, given measurements to aide you