A student measures the length of a table as 47 centimeters. The actual length is 50 centimeters. What is the percent error of the…

Percent error compares the size of the error with the actual (true) value: $\frac{|47 - 50|}{50} \times 100\% = \frac{3}{50} \times 100\% = 6\%$. Dividing by the measured value 47 instead would give 6.38%, which happens to round to the same answer here, but the denominator should be the accepted value, 50. A common wrong answer is 3, which is the absolute error in centimeters and not a percent. Another is 94, which is the measured value as a percent of the actual length.