Question

If the true value for a patient’s serum protein is 75 g/L. The patient’s serum was analyzed three times by one method yielding results of 71, 79, and 75 g/L and three times by another method yielding results of 66, 69, and 68 g/L. Which set of values are more accurate and which set of values are more precise?

Answer 1

Accuracy refers to the closeness of a measured value to the actual or true value, results nearer the true value are more accurate than ones farther away.The set of analyses of 71, 79 ,75 g/L would be more accurate than other set because they are closer to true value.

The term precision refers to the reproducibility of results or closeness of obtained values to each other. The values 66 ,69 , 68 g/L vary little from each other so they are considered to show precision . However they are not near the true value.