All Mathematical Tools Questions
All Sub-topics
Measurements in Physics
Uncertainties and Errors
Vectors and Scalars
An important note:
Question difficulty level:
Basic
Moderate
Challenging
Difficult
Black Hole
Basic
Moderate
Challenging
Difficult
Black Hole
Basic: Simple, usually one-step or definition-style questions to help you revise the basics.
Moderate: At the level of easier IB exam questions. Slightly more challenging than one-plane problems.
Challenging: Typical, medium-level exam-style questions to help you solidify your knowledge.
Difficult: This is how more challenging IB exam questions look like. If you can solve these with ease, you are in a good shape :)
Black Hole: Extra challenge for those with lightspeed thinking! Very few questions on your exam will be this difficult.
The number of significant figures in 0.02670 is:
B.
Which of the following are two fundamental SI units?
A.
Repeating readings in an experiment reduces:
B.
Which of the following are two vector quantities?
D.
A ball of 0.18 kg is traveling at a speed of 3.210 m s^{-1}. The mass and the velocity of the ball are used to calculate the magnitude of its momentum. What is the correct number of significant figures for the magnitude of the ball’s momentum?
A.
The vectors below represent the displacement of two cars.
What is the direction of S_{A}-S_{B}?
B.
An object of mass 0.0250 kg starts accelerating from rest and reaches a speed of 25.82 m s^{-1}. What is the change in the kinetic energy of the object?
C.
Which of the following is a vector quantity?
D.
A person swims across a river that is flowing east. In what direction does the person have to swim so that she only moves towards the south from her starting point?
A.
Which of the following is a fundamental SI unit?
A.
Which of the following answer options has two vector and two scalar quantities?
B.
A particle is moving upwards in a straight line at constant speed. Which diagram represents the forces acting on this particle?
D.
The radius of a spherical planet is X and the absolute uncertainty in the radius of the planet is \Delta X. What is the fractional uncertainty in the volume of the planet?
D.
The side length of a square is measured to be y \pm \Delta y. What is the fractional uncertainty in the area of the square?
B.
What is the unit of pressure in fundamental SI units?
C.
Which of the following answer options includes three scalar quantities?
D.
The charge of a proton is:
A.
Which of the following quantities has the fundamental SI unit combination of kg m s^{-1}?
C.
What is the order of magnitude, in cm, of an adult human being who has an average height?
D.
The side length of a cube is 20 \pm 5 cm. What is the absolute uncertainty in the volume of the cube?
C.
A biker travels at a constant speed of 8 m s^{-1} west during a minute and then at a constant speed of 6 m s^{-1} south during a minute. What is the average speed of the biker during these two minutes?
B.
An apple is released from rest near the surface of the Earth. It hits the ground after 2 s. What is the best estimate for the apple’s momentum right before it hits the ground?
A.
The time it takes for light to cross a helium nucleus is approximately:
D.
A student carries out an experiment to determine the speed of a toy car. The results of the experiment are shown on the graph.
What is true about the random and the systematic errors in the student’s data?
| Random errors | Systematic errors | |
| A. | Small | Large |
| B. | Large | Small |
| C. | Small | Small |
| D. | Large | Large |
A.
Two forces, X and Y, are represented by the following vectors:
Which vector represents Y – X?
A.
Which of the following units is equivalent to W m^{-1}?
C.
A block of mass m is sliding down a frictionless slope. The angle that the slope makes with the horizontal is \beta.
The normal reaction force that acts on the block is R. What is the resultant force on the block?
A.
The mass of an object is 5.0 \pm 0.1 kg and its speed is 20 \pm 1 m s^{-1}.
What is the percentage uncertainty in the kinetic energy of the object?
C.
A force of 10 N can be resolved along directions AB and AC, where AB and AC are perpendicular to each other.
The component of the force in the AC direction is 6 N. What is the magnitude of the component along the AB direction?
D.
Work done per unit volume has the same units as:
D.
A student measures the base of a triangle as 20 \pm 1 cm and its height as 8 cm \pm 4 %. What is the fractional uncertainty in the area of the triangle?
B.
The fundamental SI unit combination for volt is:
B.
Two perpendicular forces of magnitudes 9 N and 12 N act on an object. The magnitude of the resultant force on the object is:
C.
A point charge is placed in an electric field. The uncertainty in the electric force that acts on the point charge is 8 % and the uncertainty in the charge of the point charge is 4 %. What is the percentage uncertainty in the electric field strength?
C.
The mass of a car is 1000 kg\pm5% It is moving at a constant speed of 30.0 m s^{-1}\pm3%. What is the percentage uncertainty in the kinetic energy of the car?
B.
The best estimate for the order of magnitude of the ratio \frac{electron \: rest \: mass}{neutron \: rest \: mass} is:
A.
The side length of a cube is 50 \pm 1 cm and its mass is 60 \pm 3 kg. What is the percentage uncertainty in the density of the cube?
C.
Which of the following is a unit of acceleration?
A.
What is the size of a carbon nucleus?
B.
The mass of a car is 1000 kg \pm 5 % and its kinetic energy is 200 kJ \pm 15 %. What is the absolute uncertainty in the speed of the car?
C.
A coal-fired power plant uses 9 \times 10^{6} kg of coal per day. All the coal that is used in the power plant is composed of carbon-12 atoms.
What is the best estimate for the number of carbon-12 atoms used per month in the power plant?
D.
A student carries out an experiment to examine how the kinetic energy of an object varies with the speed of the object. The results are shown on the graph.
What can be deduced about the type of errors in the student’s measurements?
| Random errors | Systematic errors | |
| A. | Small | Small |
| B. | Small | Large |
| C. | Large | Small |
| D. | Large | Large |
B.
Two masses, X and Y, are 62\pm2 kg and 28\pm1 kg respectively. Which of the following has the largest fractional uncertainty?
B.
Three forces with magnitudes A, B, and C lie in the same plane and act on an object. The object is in equilibrium.
Which of the following equations is correct?
C.
The period of a mass-spring system that oscillates with simple harmonic motion (SHM) can be calculated using the formula T = 2 \pi \sqrt{\frac{m}{k}} where T is the period of the oscillations, m is mass and k is the spring constant. The percentage uncertainty in the period is 4 % and the percentage uncertainty in the mass is 8 %. What is the percentage uncertainty in the spring constant?
C.
A cube-shaped container is filled with 1000 litres of water. The density of water 1 g cm^{-3}. The difference in the orders of magnitude of the diameter of a water molecule and the side length of the container is:
C.
A box is in the shape of a rectangular prism. The length, width and height of the box are measured to be 5 cm, 10 cm, and 20 cm respectively. The uncertainty in each measurement is \pm 1 cm.
What is the absolute uncertainty in the volume of the box?
C.
A stone is thrown with initial velocity v at an angle \theta to the horizontal. The magnitude of the vertical component of the stone’s velocity is 10 m s^{-1}.
What is the value of \theta?
A.
The graph shows a data set from an experiment.
What is the percentage uncertainty in the vertical axis intercept of the line of best fit for the data set?
B.
The radius of a sphere is measured to be 10 \pm 1 cm. What is the best estimate for the absolute uncertainty in the volume of the sphere?
D.
In an experiment, the following values are measured and given together with their uncertainties:
a = 2.0 \pm x
b = 16 \pm 2%
c = 0.50 \pm 0.07
Then, H is calculated using the formula H = \frac{3a^{3}}{2 \sqrt{b} \times c}. For the values given above, the absolute uncertainty in H is \pm 1.8.
What is the value of x?
A.
Three forces, \overrightarrow{A}, \overrightarrow{B} and \overrightarrow{C}, act on object X as shown on the diagram. Object X moves at constant velocity.
Consider the following three equations:
I. \overrightarrow{A} + \overrightarrow{B} = - \overrightarrow{C}
II. \left | \overrightarrow{B} \right |cos(\alpha) = \left | \overrightarrow{C} \right |cos\left ( \frac{\pi}{2} - \alpha \right )
III. \left | \overrightarrow{A} \right | = \left | \overrightarrow{B} \right |sin(\alpha) + \left | \overrightarrow{C} \right |cos(\alpha)
Which of these three equations are correct?
D.
A stone is attached to a metal rod and rotated in a horizontal circle. The centripetal acceleration, a, of the stone is measured for different rotational time periods, T.
Given that random errors were minimised during the experiment, which of the following graphs will have a straight line of best fit?
C.
The volume of a cone is 30\pi \pm 0.9 \pi cm^{3} and its height is 100 \pm 7 mm. The volume of a cone can be calculated using V = \frac{1}{3} \pi r^{2} h where V is volume, r is radius and h is height.
What is the absolute uncertainty in the diameter of the cone?
C.
Two quantities, x and y, are related as shown on the graph. The vertical axis intercept of the graph is c and the gradient of the graph is \frac{1}{m}.
Which of the following equations correctly shows the relationship betweenx and y?
D.