Virginia Northern Community College Manassas Campus Natural Science I (NAS 101) Date of Posting: September 18, 2007 Assignment I Submit by: September 21 Start of Class Instructor: Dr Habtamu Z. Beneberu Instruction: Circle the correct answer
1. What is the basic distinction between the scientific method and other ways of looking at the natural world? a) The scientific method relies upon experiment and observation rather than philosophical doctrine. b) The scientific method begins with what it accepts as true to explain the facts, whereas religion formulates truth in light of the factual evidence. c) Religious doctrines are open to skepticism, testing, and verification whereas the scientific method does not allow for such scrutiny of its system of belief. d) The scientific method is actually not very different from other ways of looking at the world. 2. What is the difference between a hypothesis and a law? a) A law describes an established universal relationship, whereas a hypothesis is an initial scientific interpretation of evidence and events. b) A law describes a regularity in behavior that is universally constant whereas a hypothesis is a proposal concerning predicted behavior in a specific situation. c) Both of these statements are correct. d) Neither of these statements is correct. 3. You are lost in the Northern Hemisphere in the middle of nowhere on a clear night. To tell the direction of north by looking at the sky, look for _________ a) Polaris, the brightest star at the tip of the handle of the Big Dipper. b) Polaris, the brightest star at the tip of the handle of the Little Dipper. c) pointer stars in bucket of Big Dipper which point to the North Star, Polaris in the handle of the Big Dipper d) pointer stars in bucket of Big Dipper which point to the North Star, Polaris, in the bucket of the Little Dipper 4. What must be your location if the stars move across the sky in circles centered directly overhead? a) Equator b) North Pole c) You could be at either the north pole or the south pole. d) You could be anywhere on earth because this is always the case. 5. The sun, moon, and planets all follow approximately the same path from east to west across the sky. What does this suggest about the arrangement of these members of the solar system? a) Each of these objects is moving relative to the earth. b) The orbit of each planet lies in or near the plane of the earth's equator. 1
Northern Virginia Community College Manassas Campus Natural Science I (NAS 101)
c) All planets move in the same direction around the sun. d) All of these are correct. 6. What, if anything, would happen to the shape of the earth if it were to rotate even faster on its axis than it does today? a) Nothing, the shape is independent of the angular velocity. b) It would begin to bulge at the poles. c) It would be more flattened at the poles, and bulge more at the equator d) It would become egg-like in shape, bulging more at one pole than the other. 7. How many microphones are there in a megaphone? a) 106 , or 1,000,000 b) 10-6, or 0.000001 c) 10-9 , or 0.000000001 d) 1012 , or 1,000,000,000
9. What is the minimum number of unequal, non-zero forces whose vector sum can equal zero? a) one b) two c) three d) four
10. Which is correct regarding two objects in motion? a) A rapidly moving object can have the same acceleration as a slowly moving one. b) A rapidly moving must object have the same acceleration as a slowly moving one. c) A rapidly moving object must have a greater acceleration as a slowly moving one. d) A rapidly moving object must have a lesser acceleration as a slowly moving one. 11. Suppose you are in a barrel going over Niagara Falls and during the fall you drop an apple inside the barrel. Which would be true? a) The apple would appear to move toward the top of the barrel. b) The apple would appear to move toward the bottom of the barrel. c) The apple would appear to remain stationary. d) The apple would move in circles inside the barrel. 12. The path of a crate dropped from an airplane flying horizontally at a constant speed appears to _________ to someone in the plane and to ___________ to someone on the ground. a) fall straight down; fall straight down b) fall straight down; follow a curve forward and down c) follow a curve forward and down; follow a curve forward and down d) follow a curve backward and down; fall straight down 13. A. A person in a stationary elevator drops a coin which reaches the floor of the elevator in 0.6 seconds. If the elevator were moving downward at a constant speed how much time would it take for the penny to hit the floor? a. indefinitely, as long as the elevator is falling b. the same time c. a little less time d. a little more time 14. A. What is the relationship between the first and second laws of motion? a) The first law tells when motion cannot occur, the second law tells when it can. 2
Northern Virginia Community College Manassas Campus Natural Science I (NAS 101)
b) The second law describes the need for an unbalanced force to produce a change in motion, whereas the first law describes the resulting motion. c) The first law is a special case of the second law, because when F=0, a=0. d) The first law has nothing to do with the second law. 15. How are two children more likely to succeed in breaking a string? a) Each one should take an end and pull against the other. b) Each one should take an end, but only one child should pull against the other. c) Tie one end to a tree and both pull on the other end. d) All three methods would work equally well. 16. Compare the weight and mass of an object at earth's surface with what they would be at a distance of two earth radii above the earth. a) The weight would be cut by a third, while the mass remained unchanged. b) Both weight and mass would be cut by one third. c) The weight would be cut by one ninth, while the mass remained the same. d) The weight would be cut by one ninth while the mass was cut by one third. 17. A hole is bored to the center of the earth and a stone is dropped into it. How do the mass and weight of the stone at the earth's center compare with their values at earth's surface? a) The weight and mass would both be the same at the center as they are at the surface. b) The weight would double at the center, while the mass remained unchanged. c) The weight would become zero at the center, while the mass remained unchanged. d) Both the weight and the mass would become zero at the earth's center. 18. Is an astronaut orbiting in space actually weightless? a) Yes, due to the lack of gravity. b) Yes, due to the lack of an atmosphere. c) Yes, the astronaut still has mass, but has no gravitational force, so no weight. d) No, the astronaut has weight but, being in freefall, feels weightless.
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