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AP Physics 1 Unit 3B: Potential Energy & Conservation of Energy — practice questions

Explore 92 free Unit 3B: Potential Energy & Conservation of Energy questions in AP Physics 1 Physics. Open each question or exercise to read its content, reference answers and available explanation.

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Unit 3B: Potential Energy & Conservation of Energy questions and exercises with answers

Showing questions 1–30 of 92.

Average velocity is limited as a description because it says nothing about:Read the answer and worked solution →A car rounding a corner at constant speed is accelerating because:Read the answer and worked solution →The SI unit of acceleration is metres per second per second because acceleration is:Read the answer and worked solution →An acceleration of 8.33 metres per second squared due west means the velocity changes by:Read the answer and worked solution →Deceleration is best defined as acceleration that is:Read the answer and worked solution →An object with negative acceleration whose acceleration points the same way as its motion is:Read the answer and worked solution →A scalar such as temperature can be negative, and there the minus sign indicates:Read the answer and worked solution →A cyclist rides 3 km west then turns and rides 2 km east. The magnitude of the displacement is:Read the answer and worked solution →Measuring time at all depends on the fact that:Read the answer and worked solution →Vector or scalar?Read the answer and worked solution →Match each quantity to its meaningRead the answer and worked solution →True or false: describing motionRead the answer and worked solution →Work the cyclist's tripRead the answer and worked solution →Complete the motion definitionsRead the answer and worked solution →Newton's first law says a body at rest stays at rest unless acted on by:Read the answer and worked solution →The property of a body to stay at rest or keep moving at constant velocity is called:Read the answer and worked solution →A push or a pull is a vector quantity because it has magnitude and:Read the answer and worked solution →Newton's second law says acceleration is directly proportional to net external force and:Read the answer and worked solution →The SI unit of force is the newton, defined as the force needed to accelerate:Read the answer and worked solution →Weight is a downward force, so weight equals mass multiplied by:Read the answer and worked solution →An object sliding across a table slows down because of the net force of:Read the answer and worked solution →On an air hockey table with the air turned on, the puck glides far without slowing because the surface is:Read the answer and worked solution →Only which kind of force affects the motion of a system?Read the answer and worked solution →Newton's third law states that if one object exerts a force on a second, the second exerts a force that is:Read the answer and worked solution →A force exerted on an object is always due to:Read the answer and worked solution →The diagram that shows only the external forces acting on one body is called a:Read the answer and worked solution →A gravitational field g at an object's location exerts a force whose magnitude is:Read the answer and worked solution →The weight of a 1.0 kilogram object on Earth is about:Read the answer and worked solution →Weight is not an intrinsic property of an object because:Read the answer and worked solution →When NASA speaks of weightlessness and microgravity, physics calls the same phenomenon:Read the answer and worked solution →

Worked practice questions

Average velocity is limited as a description because it says nothing about:

  1. The ending position
  2. The elapsed time
  3. What happened in between
  4. The starting position
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Correct answer: C. What happened in between

1. Average velocity uses only the two endpoints and the clock. 2. The average velocity of an object does not tell us anything about what happens to it between the starting point and ending point. 3. A car could stop, reverse and speed up and still show the same average. 4. Instantaneous velocity is what fills in the story between the endpoints. _Source: OpenStax College Physics for AP(R) Courses 2e (CC BY 4.0), Ch 2 'Kinematics', sections 2.1-2.8_

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A car rounding a corner at constant speed is accelerating because:

  1. Its mass is changing
  2. Its speed is changing
  3. Its weight is changing
  4. Its direction is changing
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Correct answer: D. Its direction is changing

1. Acceleration is a change in velocity, and velocity carries a direction. 2. If a car turns a corner at constant speed, it is accelerating because its direction is changing. 3. Acceleration is therefore a change in either speed or direction, or both. 4. Constant speed rules out only one of those two ways to accelerate. _Source: OpenStax College Physics for AP(R) Courses 2e (CC BY 4.0), Ch 2 'Kinematics', sections 2.1-2.8_

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The SI unit of acceleration is metres per second per second because acceleration is:

  1. Velocity divided by time
  2. Velocity times time
  3. Distance divided by time
  4. Distance times time
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Correct answer: A. Velocity divided by time

1. Units follow directly from the defining equation. 2. Acceleration is velocity in metres per second divided by time in seconds. 3. So the SI units are metres per second squared, that is metres per second per second. 4. That name literally means by how many metres per second the velocity changes every second. _Source: OpenStax College Physics for AP(R) Courses 2e (CC BY 4.0), Ch 2 'Kinematics', sections 2.1-2.8_

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More Physics topics

Unit 8: Fluids: Density, Buoyancy and ContinuityUnit 1B: Kinematics: 2D Motion & ProjectilesUnit 1C: Kinematics: Relative & Circular MotionUnit 2A: Newton's Laws and Translational EquilibriumUnit 2B: Friction, Gravitational and Normal ForcesUnit 3A: Work and Kinetic Energy TheoremUnit 4A: Linear Momentum and ImpulseUnit 4B: Conservation of Linear Momentum & Collisions