Year 7 Science — Temperature and its measurement
Say why touch cannot judge hotness, read a thermometer correctly, and convert a Celsius temperature to the Kelvin scale.
Name: ________________________
Before you start
Slide along this laboratory thermometer's scale. Its range runs from one end to the other, and each small step is ten degrees.
A clinical thermometer covers nothing like this stretch, which is why it cannot be used on boiling water or on ice.
1.Between which two temperatures does human body temperature normally stay?
- a) 20 °C and 30 °C
- b) -10 °C and 110 °C
- c) 0 °C and 100 °C
- d) 35 °C and 42 °C
2.Why are mercury clinical thermometers being replaced by digital ones?
- a) Mercury thermometers give readings that are too precise
- b) Mercury is extremely toxic and hard to deal with if the thermometer breaks
- c) Mercury cannot measure body temperature
- d) Digital thermometers do not need to touch the body
3.What is the name of the device that measures temperature?
4.Can a clinical thermometer be used to measure the temperature of boiling water?
- a) Yes, if it is held in for long enough
- b) No, because boiling water has no temperature
- c) Yes, but the reading has to be doubled
- d) No — boiling water lies outside its range
5.Match each thermometer to what it is for.
- Clinical thermometer
- Laboratory thermometer
- measuring human body temperature
- measuring temperatures other than the body's
6.Why must a laboratory thermometer be read while its bulb is still in the water?
- a) The scale becomes unreadable out of water
- b) The liquid column starts to fall the moment it is taken out
- c) The reading takes an hour to settle
- d) The glass cracks if it is lifted out too quickly
7.Put the steps for measuring the temperature of warm water with a laboratory thermometer back into order.
- Dip the thermometer so the bulb is immersed, clear of the bottom and sides
- Read it with your eye level with the top of the column, while it is still immersed
- Hold it vertically, without tilting it
- Wait until the liquid column stops rising
8.What liquid does the chapter say a laboratory thermometer generally holds?
- a) Alcohol coloured red, or mercury
- b) Water coloured blue
- c) Air on its own
- d) Oil coloured green
Answer key — Year 7 Science — Temperature and its measurement
- 1. d) 35 °C and 42 °C
- 2. b) Mercury is extremely toxic and hard to deal with if the thermometer breaks
- 3. thermometer
- 4. d) No — boiling water lies outside its range
- 5. Clinical thermometer → measuring human body temperature; Laboratory thermometer → measuring temperatures other than the body's
- 6. b) The liquid column starts to fall the moment it is taken out
- 7. 1. Dip the thermometer so the bulb is immersed, clear of the bottom and sides 2. Hold it vertically, without tilting it 3. Wait until the liquid column stops rising 4. Read it with your eye level with the top of the column, while it is still immersed
- 8. a) Alcohol coloured red, or mercury