Accurate And Precise

In a chemistry lab, you measure boiling pure water at sea level and the thermometer reads exactly 100°C. Because this single reading perfectly matches the true accepted value, the measurement is considered highly . We cannot judge if it is yet, because we need repeated measurements to check for consistency. In a physics lab, you measure a table's length five times, getting results tightly clustered around 120.1 cm, even though the true length is 125.0 cm. Since your repeated measurements are very close to one another, your technique is highly . However, because this cluster of results is far from the actual true value, the measurements are not .

Before recording the acidity of the soil samples, students must carefully the pH meter using standard buffer solutions. A scientific hypothesis cannot be accepted until its findings are independently by multiple researchers repeating the experiment. While researchers can easily measure heart rate, it is much harder to objectively subjective human emotions during a psychological study. The pharmaceutical company's claims about the new drug's efficacy were finally by extensive clinical evidence from Phase III trials. Failing to follow these rigorous steps means the experimental results cannot be trusted by the broader scientific community.