What is volume?

• A. The mass of an object.
• B. The amount of space an object or substance takes up.
• C. The density of a substance.
• D. The color of a material.

Answer: (B)

Volume is the amount of space an object or substance takes up. It describes how much three-dimensional space the object occupies, not how much matter it contains or how dense it is. For regular shapes, you can find volume by multiplying length, width, and height; for irregular shapes, water displacement can reveal the space they occupy. Liquids are typically measured in liters or milliliters because that reflects the space the liquid fills. Mass tells you how much matter there is, measured in grams or kilograms, while density combines mass and volume as mass per unit volume. Color is simply an appearance and doesn’t relate to how much space something occupies. So the description that volume is the amount of space an object or substance takes up is the best fit.