Question

5. There is water on the pan of the scale as you measure the mass of a mineral. If you were to
ignore the water, what would be the effect on your density calculation?

Answer 1

The density is calculated with the following formula:

density = mass / volume

If there is water on the pan of scale, you will read the mass of the mineral plus mass of water.

Using this value to calculate the density (ignoring the fact that you had water) you will obtain a higher density of the mineral than the real one.