PhysicsLAB AAPT Quiz
1999 Physics Olympiad Screening Test (Part 1)
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1. A truck driver travels three-fourths the distance of his run at one velocity (v) and then completes his run at one half his original velocity (½v). What was the trucker's average speed for the trip?
 
2. Hercules and Ajax horizontally push in the same direction on a 1200 kg crate. Hercules pushes with a force of 500 newtons and Ajax pushes with a force of 300 newtons. If a frictional force provides 200 newtons of resistance, what is the acceleration of the crate?
 
3. A uniform 2 kg cylinder rests on a laboratory cart as shown. The coefficient of static friction between the cylinder and the cart is 0.5.
 
 
If the cylinder is 4 cm in diameter and 10 cm in height, which of the following is closest to the minimum acceleration of the cart needed to cause the cylinder to tip over?
 
4. Below is a graph of the distance vs. time for car moving along a road.
 
 
According the graph, at which of the following times would the automobile have been accelerating positively?




 
5. A ball which is thrown upward near the surface of the earth with a velocity of 50 m/s will come to rest about 5 seconds later. If the ball were thrown up with the same velocity on Planet X, after 5 seconds it would still be moving upwards at nearly 31 m/s. The magnitude of the gravitational field near the surface of Planet X is what fraction of the gravitational field near the surface of the earth?
 
6. Two light plastic shopping bags of negligible mass are placed 2 meters apart. Each bag contains 15 oranges. If 10 oranges were moved from one bag to the other, the gravitational force between the two bags would




 
7. If a net force F applied to an object of mass m will produce an acceleration of a, what is the mass of a second object which accelerates at 5a when acted upon by a net force of 2F?
 
8. A large beach ball is dropped from the ceiling of a school gymnasium to the floor about 10 meters below. Which of the following graphs would best represent its velocity as a function of time?




 
9. A driver in a 1500 kg sports car wishes to pass a slow moving truck on a two lane road. What is the average power in watts required to accelerate the sports car from 20 m/s to 40 m/s in 3 seconds?
 
10. A 40 kg mass is attached to a horizontal spring with a constant of 500 N/m. If the mass rests on a frictionless horizontal surface, what is the total energy of this system when set into simple harmonic motion by an original displacement of 0.2 meters?
 
11. Two skaters on a frictionless pond push apart from one another. One skater has a mass M much greater than the mass m of the second skater. After some time the two skaters are a distance d apart. How far has the lighter skater moved from her original position?
 
12. Given the three masses as shown in the diagram below.
 
 
If the coefficient of kinetic friction between the large mass (m2) and the table is m, what would be the upward acceleration of the small mass (m3)? The mass and friction of the cords and pulleys are small enough to produce a negligible effect on the system.




 
13. An object with a mass of 2 kilograms is accelerated from rest. The graph below shows the magnitude of the net force in newtons as a function of time in seconds.
 
 
At t = 4 seconds the object's velocity would have been closest to which of the following:
 
14. A thin ring of mass m and radius r rolls across the floor with a velocity v. Which of the following would be the best estimate of the ring's total kinetic energy as it rolls across the floor?
 
15. A 4.0 kg mass is attached to one end of a rope 2 m long. If the mass is swung in a vertical circle from the free end of the rope, what is the tension in the rope when the mass is at its highest point if it is moving with a speed of 5 m/sec?
 
16. A mole of ideal gas at STP is heated in an insulated constant volume container until the average velocity of its molecules doubled. Its pressure would therefore increase by what factor?
 
17. An ideal heat engine takes in heat energy at a high temperature and exhausts energy at a lower temperature. If the amount of energy exhausted at the low temperature is 3 times the amount of work done by the heat engine, what is its efficiency?
 
18. If 100 g of ice at 0oC is mixed with 100 g of boiling water at 100o C, which of the following graphs would best represent the temperature vs time of the two components of the mixture?




 
19. Two wave sources, G and H, produce waves of different wavelengths as shown in the diagram. Lines shown in the diagram represent wave crests.
 
 
Which of the following would be true of the resulting interference pattern?




 
20. Given a wave produced by a simple harmonic oscillator whose displacement in meters is given by the equation:
 
 
What is the frequency of the wave in hertz?
 



 
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