Barrons SAT Subject Test Chemistry, 13th Edition

There are seven basic units that can be used to express the fundamental
properties of measurement. These are called the SI base units and are shown in
the table that follows.

SI Base Units

Property

Unit

Abbreviation

mass

kilogram

kg

length

meter

m

time

second

s

electric current

ampere

A

temperature

kelvin

K

amount of substance

mole

mol

luminous intensity

candela*

cd

*The candela is rarely used in chemistry.

Other SI units are derived by combining prefixes with a base unit. The
prefixes represent multiples or fractions of 10. The following table gives some
basic prefixes used in the metric system.

Prefixes Used with SI Units