The volume of a liquid is the amount of space that the liquid occupies or contains. Since for a liquid, it takes the shape of the container, when measuring the volume, we just measure the space occupied by the liquid in the container.
From the image, when determining the volume, we are to use the value of the lower meniscus. Hence the volume of the liquid is gotten to be 76 ml
Water has strong hydrogen bond dipole-dipole intermolecular forces that give water a high surface tension and a high heat of vaporization and that make it a strong solvent.