Question

A person has 5.0 liters of blood which contains 95 mg of glucose per 100 ml. What is the total mass of glucose (in grams) in the 5.0 liters of blood

Answer 1

Use conversion factors to calculate this answer. Since there are 1000 ml in a liter, this means that there is 95 mg of glucose in 0.1 liter. To add on, since there is 1000 mg in a gram, this means that there is 0.095 grams in 0.1 liters. 5 liters of blood is 0.1 x 50 = 5.0. Hence, you would need to multiply 0.095 x 50, which is equates to about 4.75 grams of glucose in 5.0 liters of blood.

Don’t forget the significant figures, 4.75 is rounded to 4.7 because the significant figures in this case is 2 sig figs (5.0 liters of blood).