Physical Science Test Preparation
Course Introduction
Physical Science is an introductory course that explores the fundamental concepts of physics and chemistry, providing a foundational understanding of the natural world. Students will examine topics such as the structure of matter, energy, motion, forces, waves, electricity, magnetism, and basic chemical reactions. The course emphasizes scientific inquiry, hands-on experimentation, and real-world applications, equipping learners with critical thinking and problem-solving skills necessary for further study in the sciences.
Recommended Textbook
Understanding Our Universe 1st Edition by Stacy Palen
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18 Chapters
1350 Verified Questions
1350 Flashcards
Source URL: https://quizplus.com/study-set/2885 Page 2
Chapter 1: Our Place in the Universe
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71 Verified Questions
71 Flashcards
Source URL: https://quizplus.com/quiz/57417
Sample Questions
Q1) The number of classical planets in the Solar System is:
A) eight
B) nine
C) twelve
D) six
Answer: A
Q2) The kind of mathematics that deals with change is called:
A) algebra
B) calculus
C) arithmetic
D) geometry
Answer: B
Q3) Describe two ways in which Einstein's new theories changed commonly accepted scientific views of that time.
Answer: Mass and energy are essentially the same (you can convert one into the other).Time and space are not separate things.Newton's laws are only a special case of a greater law.
Q4) Name three dwarf planets.
Answer: Pluto,Ceres,Eris.
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Chapter 2: Patterns in the Skymotions of Earth
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92 Verified Questions
92 Flashcards
Source URL: https://quizplus.com/quiz/57418
Sample Questions
Q1) A planet travels fastest when it is closest to the Sun.
A)True
B)False
Answer: True
Q2) Saturn has a semimajor axis of 9.6 AU.How long does it take Saturn to orbit once around the Sun?
Answer: Using Kepler's third law P<sup>2</sup> = A<sup>3</sup>,and comparing it to the Earth's orbital period of 1 year and semimajor axis of 1 AU,Saturn's period P is equal to (P/1 yr)<sup>2</sup> = (9.6 AU/1 AU)<sup>3</sup> gives us P = 1 yr × (9.6)<sup>3/2</sup> = 9.6<sup>1.5 </sup>yr = 30 yr.
Q3) Planets with circular orbits travel at the same speed at all points in their orbits,whereas planets with elliptical orbits change their speeds at different points in their orbits.
A)True
B)False
Answer: True
Q4) On which great celestial circle(s)on the celestial sphere would you find the position of the autumnal equinox?
Answer: On both the celestial equator and the ecliptic planes.
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Chapter 3: Laws of Motion
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70 Verified Questions
70 Flashcards
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Sample Questions
Q1) If an object is moving in a circular orbit at a constant speed,which of the following is FALSE?
A) Its acceleration is not zero.
B) Its acceleration is zero.
C) Its velocity is not zero.
D) There is an unbalanced force acting on it.
Answer: B
Q2) Which scientist ended up under house arrest due to his support of the heliocentric model?
A) Galileo Galilei
B) Isaac Newton
C) Johannes Kepler
D) Tycho Brahe
Answer: A
Q3) What information would you need to obtain about one of the moons of the planet Jupiter in order to measure the mass of Jupiter?
Answer: You would need to know the semimajor axis of the moon's orbit in units of either km or AU,as well as the period of the moon's orbit.
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Chapter 4: Light and Telescopes
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71 Verified Questions
71 Flashcards
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Sample Questions
Q1) What is the angular resolution of a 1-m,ground-based,optical telescope that observes at a wavelength of 600 nm compared to that of a 300-ft,single dish radio telescope that observes at a wavelength of 21 cm?
Q2) A spaceship approaches Earth at 0.9 times the speed of light and shines a powerful searchlight onto Earth.How fast will the photons from this searchlight be moving when they hit Earth?
Q3) The Voyager I spacecraft is currently 16.5 billion km from Earth and heading out of our Solar System.How long does it take radio messages from Voyager I to reach us?
A) 1.5 days
B) 15 hours
C) 1.5 weeks
D) 15 minutes
Q4) As a beam of light travels from one medium to another,the change in direction of the beam of light depends on:
A) the wavelength of the light
B) the index of refraction of the medium through which it is traveling
C) the index of refraction of the medium into which it is moving
D) all of the above
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Page 6
Chapter 5: The Formation of Stars and Planets
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79 Verified Questions
79 Flashcards
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Sample Questions
Q1) Explain how astronomers use the Doppler effect to detect the presence of extra-solar planets.
Q2) Approximately how massive are nearly all the extrasolar planets that have been discovered thus far,and how is this related to the way in which we detect them?
Q3) The angular momentum of a planet depends on its mass and its distance from the Sun.
A)True
B)False
Q4) Explain why most of the extra-solar planets astronomers have detected are so-called "hot Jupiters."
Q5) What is the ratio of the orbital angular momentum of the Earth compared to its spin angular momentum? Note that the Earth has a radius of 6,000 km,and 1 AU is 1.5 × 10<sup>11</sup> m.
A) 70
B) 640
C) 25,000
D) 4 million
Q6) Explain the two primary reasons why the inner solar nebula was hotter than the outer solar nebula.
Page 7
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Chapter 6: Terrestrial Worlds in the Inner Solar System
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91 Verified Questions
91 Flashcards
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Sample Questions
Q1) Suppose you had samples of the same kind of rock from two planets that were completely identical except that the interior of one was chemically differentiated and the interior of the other was not.How would you expect the samples to differ from each other?
Q2) A hotter star will radiate more blue photons than a cooler star.
A)True
B)False
Q3) Which of the following is NOT a factor that helps explain Earth's lack of craters compared to the Moon?
A) Wind erosion
B) Larger atmosphere
C) Higher density interior
D) Liquid water on surface
Q4) Describe two reasons why Earth's magnetic field cannot be a result of permanent magnetism.
Q5) Flows of material surrounding Martian craters suggest:
A) volcanism in its interior
B) the presence of water in surface rocks
C) active plate tectonics at the time of impact
D) a very thin crust
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Chapter 7: Atmospheres of Venus, Earth, and Mars
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69 Verified Questions
69 Flashcards
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Sample Questions
Q1) The fraction of oxygen in the Earth's atmosphere has always remained about the same as it is today.
A)True
B)False
Q2) If the carbon dioxide in Earth rocks were suddenly released into its atmosphere,Earth could quite possibly undergo a runaway greenhouse effect.
A)True
B)False
Q3) On Mars,water would exist in what forms (solid,liquid,or gas)? How does this vary with the seasons on Mars? Why are the seasonal variations on Mars different between the northern and southern hemispheres?
Q4) Venus's surface temperature is fairly uniform from the equator to the poles because:
A) Venus rotates very rapidly,which causes strong zonal winds
B) Venus is covered by a thick cloud layer that absorbs most of the sunlight that falls on it
C) the carbon dioxide in Venus's atmosphere efficiently emits infrared radiation
D) Venus rotates slowly so Coriolis forces do not disrupt Hadley circulation
Q5) What two factors control a planet's temperature?
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Chapter 8: The Giant Planets
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79 Verified Questions
79 Flashcards
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Sample Questions
Q1) Which of the giant planets does NOT have rings?
A) Jupiter
B) Saturn
C) Uranus
D) Neptune
E) All of the giant planets have rings.
Q2) If you wanted to search for faint rings around a giant planet by sending a spacecraft on a flyby,it would be best to do so:
A) as the spacecraft approached the planet
B) after the spacecraft passed the planet
C) during the closest flyby
D) while orbiting one of its moons
Q3) The fastest zonal winds are found on:
A) Jupiter and Saturn
B) Saturn and Neptune
C) Uranus and Neptune
D) Jupiter and Uranus
Q4) What clues do the differences in the masses of the giant planets give about conditions in the early Solar System?
Q5) Why do we suspect that the inner planets do not have rings?
Page 10
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Chapter 9: Small Bodies of the Solar System
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75 Verified Questions
75 Flashcards
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Sample Questions
Q1) Most comets originate:
A) near Earth and Venus in the early Solar System
B) far from the planets,many thousands of AU from the Sun
C) from the region between the orbits of Jupiter and Neptune
D) between the Sun and Mercury
Q2) Like meteoroids and asteroids,cometary nuclei in the Oort Cloud undergo frequent collisions that often send them into the inner Solar System.
A)True
B)False
Q3) The nucleus of the typical comet is approximately __________ in size.
A) 10 km
B) 1,000 km
C) 10 m
D) 1 cm
Q4) Which of the following can be used as an indicator of the age of a moon's surface?
A) Surface brightness
B) Crater density
C) Volcanic activity
D) all of the above
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Chapter 10: Measuring the Stars
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75 Verified Questions
75 Flashcards
Source URL: https://quizplus.com/quiz/57426
Sample Questions
Q1) What is the main property of a main-sequence star that determines nearly all its other properties?
Q2) Star A is a red star.Star B is a blue star.Which is hotter?
A) Star A
B) Star B
C) We also need to know the luminosities of the stars to determine their temperatures.
D) Color is not related to temperature at all.
Q3) The star named Capella has an apparent magnitude of 0 while the star named Polaris has an apparent magnitude of 2,which means that Capella appears __________ Polaris in the night sky.
A) brighter than
B) as bright as
C) dimmer than
Q4) Excluding the Sun,not a single star has an observed parallax greater than 1 arcsecond.
A)True
B)False
Q5) A star with a stellar parallax of 0.025 arcseconds is at a distance of how many parsecs?
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Chapter 11: Our Star: The Sun
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71 Verified Questions
71 Flashcards
Source URL: https://quizplus.com/quiz/57427
Sample Questions
Q1) Density,temperature,and pressure increase as you move inward in the interior of the Sun.This means that the force of gravity,(F<sub>g</sub> = GMm/r<sup>2</sup>),__________ as you move inward toward the core.
A) increases B) decreases C) stays the same
D) There is not enough information to answer.
Q2) Nuclei of atoms are held together by gravity.
A)True
B)False
Q3) If a sunspot appears one-quarter as bright as the surrounding photosphere,and the average temperature of the photosphere is 5,800 K,what is the temperature of the gas in this sunspot?
A) 4100 K
B) 4500 K
C) 5200 K
D) 5500 K
Q4) At the center of the Sun,the temperature is roughly 15 million K.
A)True
B)False
Page 13
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Chapter 12: Evolution of Low-Mass Stars
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73 Verified Questions
73 Flashcards
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Sample Questions
Q1) We can determine the age of a star cluster by measuring the color of the reddest red giant stars in the cluster.
A)True
B)False
Q2) A star's surface temperature during the horizontal branch phase is determined primarily by its:
A) luminosity
B) chemical composition
C) magnetic field strength
D) rotation rate
Q3) A Type Ia supernova has a luminosity of approximately:
A) 10 thousand L<sub>\(\bigodot\)</sub>
B) 10 million L<sub>\(\bigodot\)</sub>
C) 10 billion L<sub>\(\bigodot\)</sub>
D) 10 trillion L<sub>\(\bigodot\)</sub>
Q4) The Sun eventually could become a nova.
A)True
B)False
Q5) In what two ways does temperature affect the rate of nuclear reactions?
Q6) Why are novae thought to be recurrent?
Page 14
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Chapter 13: Evolution of High-Mass Stars
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71 Verified Questions
71 Flashcards
Source URL: https://quizplus.com/quiz/57429
Sample Questions
Q1) Which of the following is a consequence of Einstein's special theory of relativity?
A) Moving clocks run quicker.
B) The velocity of light depends on the speed of the observer.
C) Distances appear shorter when traveling near the speed of light.
D) Gravity arises because mass distorts spacetime.
Q2) Einstein's special theory of relativity implies that if a person standing at the front of a train traveling at 0.1 km/s shines a flashlight out in front of the train,the emitted photons will travel at a speed of 300,000.1 km/s.
A)True
B)False
Q3) Galileo supposedly experimented with gravity by dropping two objects of different masses from the leaning tower of Pisa at the same instant and observing that they hit the ground at the same time.If Albert Einstein had done the experiment,how would his conclusion have differed from Galileo's?
Q4) Although a Type II supernova shines with a luminosity of 100 billion L<sub>\(\bigodot\)</sub>,most of the energy in the explosion is emitted in another way.What is it,and how much more energy does it carry compared to the light?
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15
Chapter 14: The Expansion of Space
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71 Verified Questions
71 Flashcards
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Sample Questions
Q1) If you found a galaxy with a hydrogen emission line,normally found at 656.3 nm,with a measured wavelength of 756.3 nm,what would be the galaxy's redshift?
A) 0.01
B) 0.05
C) 0.10
D) 0.15
Q2) If a galaxy has a recessional velocity of 880 km/s,what is its distance if the Hubble constant is 22 km/s/Mly?
A) 40 Mly
B) 88 Mly
C) 400 Mly
D) 8,800 Mly
Q3) When we measure distances to very faint galaxies with Type Ia supernovae,the accuracy of the measurement is only as good as that of the calibration of the Cepheids.
A)True
B)False
Q4) Describe the two assumptions regarding the universe that the cosmological principle makes.
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16
Chapter 15: The Realm of the Galaxies
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71 Verified Questions
71 Flashcards
Source URL: https://quizplus.com/quiz/57431
Sample Questions
Q1) AGNs appear to be powered by:
A) supermassive black holes
B) extremely dense star clusters
C) ultradense molecular clouds.
D) dark matter
Q2) If an AGN varies its brightness on a timescale of 4 hours,then what is the size of the AGN measured in AU?
Q3) The disks of spiral galaxies appear blue because:
A) spiral galaxies are moving toward us
B) spiral galaxies contain mostly hot blue stars
C) spiral galaxies are still undergoing star formation
D) spiral galaxies contain more metals that,when ionized,emit blue light
Q4) Spiral structure:
A) rotates at the same speed as the gas in the disk
B) rotates at a speed that is different than the gas in the disk
C) stays constant in time as the gas in the disk rotates through it
D) none of the above is true
Q5) Give three examples of types of active galactic nuclei and give one reason why each is unique.
Page 17
Q6) What is a rotation curve,and what can it tell us about a galaxy?
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Chapter 16: Our Galaxy: The Milky Way
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80 Verified Questions
80 Flashcards
Source URL: https://quizplus.com/quiz/57432
Sample Questions
Q1) An H II region signals the presence of:
A) newly formed stars
B) young stars
C) O- and B-type stars
D) all of the above
Q2) The chemical abundance of a main-sequence star usually reflects how much nuclear burning has gone on inside it.
A)True
B)False
Q3) A typical molecular cloud has a temperature of approximately:
A) 0.3 K
B) 10 K
C) 300 K
D) 1000 K
Q4) Describe the population of globular star clusters in the Milky Way: how many are there,where do they reside in the Milky Way,and how do their ages and chemical abundances compare to the Sun?
Q5) The Milky Way has two major spiral arms that emanate from the ends of its bar.
A)True
B)False
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Chapter 17: Modern Cosmology and the Origin of Structure
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100 Verified Questions
100 Flashcards
Source URL: https://quizplus.com/quiz/57433
Sample Questions
Q1) Why does the overall mass and energy density of the universe decide its ultimate fate?
A) The greater the density of the universe,the more black holes will form,which will devour surrounding material more quickly.
B) The greater the density of the universe,the more gravitationally bound the universe will be.
C) The greater the density of the universe,the more massive stars it will contain,and the faster it will evolve.
D) The greater the density of the universe,the more stars it will form over time and the longer the universe will last.
Q2) If dark energy were to instantly cease,our universe would continue to expand forever. A)True
B)False
Q3) How would astronomers describe the antiparticle of an electron?
A) It would have the same mass but opposite charge.
B) It would have the same charge but opposite spin.
C) It would have the opposite charge and higher mass.
D) It would have the opposite spin and higher mass.
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Chapter 18: Life in the Universe
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41 Verified Questions
41 Flashcards
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Sample Questions
Q1) What is SETI,what is its main objective,and how does it plan to achieve its objective?
Q2) The four main chemicals of which life on Earth are composed are hydrogen,carbon,oxygen,and sulfur.
A)True
B)False
Q3) What occurred approximately 500 million years ago?
A) The extinction of the dinosaurs
B) The Cambrian explosion
C) The rise of mammals
D) The birth of the first humans
Q4) Terrestrial life is composed of 20 different acids that are composed of only 4 different chemical elements.
A)True
B)False
Q5) Approximately 10 percent of all life on Earth has been in the form of microorganisms. A)True
B)False
Q6) What are the four main chemicals that make up all living organisms on the Earth?
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