Pushing Rope: Can You Pass An 8th Grade Science Test

Tuesday, January 15, 2008

I would like to give this test to Christian fundamentalists and opportunistic politians that don't want evolution taught in schools.

At January 15, 2008 6:14 PM , Anonymous said...: They had a question wrong...

# A stone dropped from a helicopter takes 10 seconds to hit the sea below. What is its final velocity? (Assume that the acceleration due to gravity is 10 m/s^2)

The choices were:
10 m/s
100 m/s
1 m/s
and 0 m/s

Now, after it hit the sea, one could say it had stopped falling and had a final velocity of 0 m/s.

The final velocity v of an object which starts with velocity u and then accelerates at constant acceleration a for a period of time (Δt) is: v = u aΔt.

Which means the final velocity - just prior to hitting the sea - would be 110 m/s...

(So this was the only question I got wrong...)
At January 16, 2008 12:50 AM , tas said...: I got a C. So much for those GenEds I just took at college.

Actually, this just confirms my belief that I really, really suck at science. This is despite the aforementioned GenEds and a reading of Bill Bryson's "A Short History of Nearly Everything." So it's not liek I don't try...