Would a piece of wood with a mass of 48 grams and a volume of 47.4 cm^3 float in water?

The piece of wood would sink.

Given that water has a density of 1 g/cm^3 the piece of wood would have to be lower than such density. A bigger density would then mean said object would sink.

To find the density of the piece of wood you need to know the density formula which is d= m/v, m being mass and v being volume. With the givens of mass and volume you just need to plug your values in to get 48/47.4=d. Dividing would then equate to about 1.02, which exceeds the density of water, therefore sinking.

An easy way to find the answer to this is if you see that the volume is greater than the mass then it will float, if less then it will sink. If they are the same number then you can suggest that it depends on the water’s buoyancy.