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KCSE Sound — practice questions

Explore 30 free Sound questions in KCSE Physics. Open each question or exercise to read its content, reference answers and available explanation.

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Sound questions and exercises with answers

Showing questions 1–30 of 30.

How is sound defined?Read the answer and worked solution →What is meant by a disturbance in the description of a wave?Read the answer and worked solution →On what two properties of a medium does the speed of sound depend?Read the answer and worked solution →How does making a medium more rigid affect the speed of sound in it?Read the answer and worked solution →How does increasing the density of a medium affect the speed of sound?Read the answer and worked solution →Why is the speed of sound in air relatively low?Read the answer and worked solution →How does the speed of sound in solids and liquids compare with that in gases?Read the answer and worked solution →What does the loudness of a sound depend on?Read the answer and worked solution →Which quantity is used to describe the loudness of sounds?Read the answer and worked solution →An ambulance siren passes you at speed. What happens to the pitch you hear?Read the answer and worked solution →What happens to the Doppler shift as the moving source travels faster?Read the answer and worked solution →A source of sound moves forward. What happens to the wavelength ahead of it?Read the answer and worked solution →An observer moves towards a stationary bell. What do they hear?Read the answer and worked solution →An observer moves away from a stationary source of sound. What do they receive?Read the answer and worked solution →What is damping?Read the answer and worked solution →What is the natural frequency of a system?Read the answer and worked solution →What is resonance?Read the answer and worked solution →You drive an oscillating object far above its natural frequency. What happens to the amplitude?Read the answer and worked solution →Why can sound not travel across a vacuum?Read the answer and worked solution →A vibrating guitar string makes a sound. What does it do to the surrounding air?Read the answer and worked solution →A sound is described as periodic. What does that say about the particles of the medium?Read the answer and worked solution →Sound reaches you faster through a steel rail than through the air. Why?Read the answer and worked solution →Why does the speed of sound in a gas change with temperature?Read the answer and worked solution →A singer's note makes a piano string sound without touching it. What is happening?Read the answer and worked solution →Two identical sirens sound, one on a parked car and one on a car speeding towards you. What differs?Read the answer and worked solution →Faster or slower sound?Read the answer and worked solution →Pitch up or pitch down?Read the answer and worked solution →Sound words bingoRead the answer and worked solution →Catch what sound needsRead the answer and worked solution →Spot the odd oneRead the answer and worked solution →

Worked practice questions

How is sound defined?

  1. A disturbance of matter travelling outward
  2. A flow of charged particles through air
  3. A stream of light released by a source
  4. A steady pressure applied to a surface
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Correct answer: A. A disturbance of matter travelling outward

1. Sound is a wave, and a wave is a travelling disturbance. 2. Sound is defined as a disturbance of matter transmitted outward from its source. 3. Because it is a disturbance of matter, sound needs a medium and cannot cross a vacuum. 4. Light needs no medium, which is what separates it from sound. _Source: OpenStax Physics (high school, CC BY 4.0), Ch 14 "Sound", section Properties of Sound Waves_

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What is meant by a disturbance in the description of a wave?

  1. Something losing all of its energy
  2. Something moved from its equilibrium
  3. Something changing its chemical form
  4. Something gaining electrical charge
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Correct answer: B. Something moved from its equilibrium

1. A wave carries a disturbance rather than carrying matter along with it. 2. A disturbance is anything moved from its state of equilibrium. 3. For sound, the particles of the medium are pushed off their rest positions. 4. Some sound waves are periodic, so those particles undergo simple harmonic motion. _Source: OpenStax Physics (high school, CC BY 4.0), Ch 14 "Sound", section Properties of Sound Waves_

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On what two properties of a medium does the speed of sound depend?

  1. Its colour and its temperature
  2. Its charge and its conductivity
  3. Its rigidity and its density
  4. Its volume and its total mass
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Correct answer: C. Its rigidity and its density

1. The speed of sound varies greatly with the medium it travels through. 2. It is set by a combination of the rigidity of that medium and its density. 3. Rigidity is described as compressibility when the medium is a gas. 4. Temperature matters only because it changes the density of the medium. _Source: OpenStax Physics (high school, CC BY 4.0), Ch 14 "Sound", section The Speed of Sound_

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How to practise

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