*P16*

Pre-Leaving Certiϐicate Examination, 2019

Triailscrúdú na hArdteistiméireachta, 2019

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PčĞĘĎĈĘ – HĎČčĊė LĊěĊđ

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TĎĒĊ: 3 HĔĚėĘ

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Answer three questions from Section A and ϐive questions from Section B.

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Relevant data are listed in the Formulae and Tables booklet, which is available from the Superintendent.
 SĊĈęĎĔē A (120 marks)

Answer three ques ons from this sec on.

Each ques on carries 40 marks.

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1. In an experiment to measure the accelera on due to gravity g by a free fall method,

a student measured the me t for an object to fall from rest through a distance s. This
procedure was repeated for a series of values of the distance s. The table shows the data
recorded by the student.

s/cm 30 40 50 60 70 80 90

t/ms 244 291 325 342 371 409 420

Draw a labelled diagram of the apparatus used in the experiment.

Indicate the distance s on your diagram.

Describe how the me interval t was measured. (15)

Calculate a value for the accelera on due to gravity g by drawing a suitable graph based
on the recorded data. (21)

Give two ways of minimising the effect of air resistance in the experiment. (4)

2. A student was asked to measure the focal length of a converging lens. The student measured
the image distance v for each of four different object distances u. The following data was
recorded.

u/cm 20.0 25.0 35.0 45.0

v/cm 66.4 40.6 27.6 23.2

Describe, with the aid of a labelled diagram, how the student found the posi on of the
image. (10)

Give two precau ons that should be taken when measuring the image distance. (6)

Calculate a value for the focal length by drawing a suitable graph based on the recorded data.
(15)
How could an approximate value for the focal length be found?

Give two sources of error in measuring the image distance and state how one of these errors
can be reduced. (9)

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3. In an experiment to measure the specific latent heat of vaporisa on of water, cool water was
placed in an insulated copper calorimeter. Dry steam was added to the calorimeter. The
following data was recorded.

Mass of copper calorimeter = 34.6 g

Ini al mass of calorimeter and water = 96.4 g

Mass of dry steam added = 1.2 g

Ini al temperature of calorimeter and cooled water = 8.2°C

Final temperature of calorimeter and water = 20.0°C

Dry steam was added to the calorimeter. Explain how and why the steam is used. (10)

Calculate a value for the specific latent heat of vaporisa on of water. The specific heat
capacity of copper is 390 J kg–1 K–1 and the specific heat capacity of water is 4,180 J kg–1 K–1.
(24)
Why was a sensi ve thermometer used? (6)

4. A student was asked to inves gate the varia on of current with poten al difference for
a semiconductor diode. The student set up a circuit using appropriate equipment.
The student recorded the values of the current I passing through the semiconductor for the
corresponding values of poten al difference V. The recorded data are shown in the table.

V/V 0.30 0.32 0.34 0.36 0.38 0.40

I/mA 2 4 10 18 35 120

Draw and label the circuit diagram used by the student.

How did the student vary and measure the poten al difference? (15)

Draw a graph to show how the current varies with the poten al difference.

Es mate from your graph the junc on voltage of the diode. (12)

The student then put the diode in reverse bias and repeated the experiment.

What changes did the student make to the ini al circuit?

Draw a sketch of the graph obtained for the diode in reverse bias.

Explain the shape of your graph. (13)

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 SĊĈęĎĔē B (280 MARKS)

Answer five ques ons from this sec on.

Each ques on carries 56 marks.

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5. Answer any eight of the following parts (a), (b), (c), etc.

(a) What is the shortest stopping me for a car which is travelling at 20 m s–1 and has
a maximum decelera on of 2.5 m s–2?

(b) Dis nguish between mass and weight.

(c) Why does the temperature of an athlete reduce when they perspire?

(d) What is the focal length of a lens which has a power of –3 m–1?

(e) How is energy transferred from the sun to the earth?

(f) Calculate the energy stored in a 5 μF capacitor when a poten al difference of 20 V

is applied to it.

(g) Why does a magnet that is free to rotate point towards the North?

(h) State the principle on which the defini on of the ampere is based.

(i) How are electrons accelerated in a cathode ray tube?

(j) What characteris c of light controls the current in a photocell?

or

A kaon consists of a strange quark and an up an -quark. What type of hadron is a kaon?

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6. Define (i) velocity, (ii) angular velocity. (12)

Derive the rela onship between the velocity of a par cle travelling in uniform circular
mo on and its angular velocity. (12)

A student threw a ball ver cally up into the air. When the ball fell down it struck the ground.
Ignoring the effect of air resistance, state an energy conversion that occurred

(iii) as the ball was rising through the air,

(iv) as the ball was falling to the ground,

(v) as the ball struck the ground. (9)

The ball le the student’s hand at a height 1 m above the ground and its ini al velocity was
7.0 m s–1 upwards.

Calculate

(vi) the me taken for the ball to reach its maximum height above the ground,

(vii) the me taken for the ball to hit the ground from when it leaves the child’s hand,

(viii) the maximum height of the ball above the ground,

(ix) the maximum kine c energy of the ball that had a mass of 0.1 kg. (23)

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7. What is refrac on of light?

When does refrac on not occur as a ray of light travels from one medium into another?

Define (i) refrac ve index, (ii) cri cal angle. (18)

Describe an experiment to measure the refrac ve index of glass. (18)

The figure below shows a ray travelling from water to air from an underwater lamp.

28°

20°

Calculate

(iii) the refrac ve index of water,

(iv) the cri cal angle of water,

(v) the speed of light as it travels through water.

Draw a diagram to show what happens when a ray from the underwater light source
strikes the water-air surface at an angle that exceeds the cri cal angle. (12)

Name this phenomenon and give one applica on of it. (8)

(speed of light in air, c = 3.00 × 108 m s–1)

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8. Define electric current.

Dis nguish between direct current and alterna ng current.

A mobile phone contains a rechargeable 5 V ba ery that supplies direct current to the
phone’s electrical circuits.

Calculate

(i) the effec ve resistance of the arrangement of resistors in one of the phone’s circuits
that is shown in the figure below,

5V
I

500 Ω

400 Ω 350 Ω

(ii) the current I flowing in this circuit,

(iii) the electrical energy used by this circuit in 1 minute. (29)

The phone’s ba ery can be recharged by connec ng the phone to a charger plugged into the
mains supply. The charger contains a transformer.

Explain the opera on of a transformer. (15)

The transformer in the phone charger has 1200 turns in the primary coil and is connected to
the 230 V mains supply.

Calculate the number of turns required in the secondary coil to generate an output of 10 V.

How could the transformer be modified to produce a higher output voltage?

Give one way of reducing energy losses in a transformer. (12)

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9. Define (i) power, (ii) specific heat capacity. (9)

500 g of water at a temperature of 15°C is placed in an electric ke le and boiled to make

a hot drink. The power ra ng of the ke le is 3.0 kW.

Calculate

(iii) the energy required to boil the water,

(iv) the energy supplied by the ke le per second,

(v) the least amount of me it would take to boil the water. (20)

In reality, the me taken to boil the water will be greater. Explain why. (4)

Name two processes by which a hot drink cools. (7)

How is the energy lost by each of these processes reduced for a hot drink supplied in
a disposable cup? (7)

A thermocouple is used to measure the temperature of the steam.

How would you demonstrate the principle of opera on of a thermocouple? (9)

(Specific heat capacity of water = 4200 J kg–1 K–1)

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10. Answer either part (a) or part (b).

(a) Over one hundred years ago, Albert Einstein explained the photoelectric effect.
What is the photoelectric effect? (6)
Write down an expression for Einstein’s photoelectric law. (9)
Summarise Einstein’s explana on of the photoelectric effect. (9)
Give one applica on of the photoelectric effect. I (6)
An inves ga on was carried out to establish
the rela onship between the current flowing
in a photocell and the frequency of the light
incident on it. The graph illustrates the
rela onship.
f
6 × 1014 Hz
Using the graph, calculate the work func on of the metal.
What is the maximum speed of an emi ed electron when light of wavelength
400 nm is incident on the photocell?
Explain why a current does not flow in the photocell when the frequency of
the light is less than 6 × 1014 Hz. (26)
(Planck constant = 6.6 × 10–34 J s; speed of light = 3.0 × 108 m s–1;
charge on electron = 1.6 × 10–19 C; mass of electron = 9.1 × 10–31 kg)
(b) Leptons, baryons and mesons are examples of par cles.
Give (i) an example, (ii) a property, of one of these par cles. (6)
The following reac on represents pair produc on.

γ → e+ + e –

Calculate the minimum frequency of the γ-ray photon required for this reac on
to occur. (15)
What is the effect on the products of the reac on if the frequency of the γ-ray
photon exceeds the minimum value? (6)
The reverse of the above reac on is known as pair annihila on. During a nuclear
interac on an an proton collides with a proton. Pair annihila on takes place and two
gamma ray photons of the same frequency are produced.
What is a photon? (3)
Calculate the frequency of a photon produced during the interac on. (11)
Why are two photons produced? Describe the mo on of the photons a er the
interac on. (9)
How is charge conserved during this interac on? (6)

(mass of electron = 9.1 × 10–31 kg; speed of light, c = 3.0 × 108 m s–1;
Planck constant, h = 6.6 × 10–34 J s, mass of proton = 1.673 × 10–27 kg)

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11. Read the following passage and answer the accompanying ques ons.

Galway Wind Park – Ireland’s largest wind farm enters commercial opera on

The 169 MW Galway Wind Park, co-developed

by SSE and Coillte in Connemara’s Cloosh Valley,
entered commercial opera on in October 2017
and is now Ireland’s largest and best performing
wind farm, genera ng more green energy than
any other wind genera on site on the island.
Located south-west of Oughterard, Galway Wind
Park comprises 58 Siemens 3MW wind turbines,
each rated to the highest interna onal standard
and specifically engineered for the prevailing wind condi ons at the Connemara site to op mise
genera on output performance.

The power P of the wind can be calculated from P = ρAv3 where ρ is the density of the air, A is
the area the wind acts on and v is the speed of the wind. In theory it is possible to extract 58%
of this energy in a wind turbine. Much of the loss occurs as the wind is slowed down rather than
stopped as it passes the turbine.

SSE and Coillte forecast that Galway Wind Park will produce over 600 GWh of green energy
each year – enough renewable energy to power over 140,000 Irish homes. Many people are
concerned about the noise associated with wind turbines. At about 100 m from a turbine,
typical sound intensity levels are 50 dB. This reduces to 43 dB at about 300 m away. These values
compare favourably with values of around 60 dB in a busy office.

(a) Galway Wind Park will produce over 600 GWh each year. What does the unit GWh
represent?

(b) What is the effect on the power of the wind if the wind speed is doubled?

(c) Why is it not possible to extract all of the energy in the wind striking a wind turbine
blade?

(d) Define sound intensity.

(e) Es mate the factor by which the sound intensity changes when you move from a
posi on which is about 300 m away to a posi on which is about 100 m away from
a typical wind turbine.

(f) What is the p speed (the linear velocity of the outer end) of a blade of radius 65 m
when it completes a revolu on every 3 seconds?

(g) Small scale wind turbines are some mes used to charge ba eries. The a.c. output
voltage has to be converted to a d.c. voltage. How is this achieved?

(h) Name one other renewable source of energy.

(8 × 7)

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12. (a) The figure below shows a uniform metre rule pivoted at the 20 cm mark. It is balanced
by a weight of 3.5 N suspended at the 5 cm mark.

5 cm 20 cm

3.5 N

(i) Determine the weight of the metre rule. (7)

Taking the moments of the forces about the pivot point, calculate

(ii) the total of the clockwise moments, (7)

(iii) the total of the an -clockwise moments, (7)

(iv) Explain how this verifies the law of equilibrium. (7)

(b) List one factor that affects the capacitance of a parallel plate capacitor. (4)

The plates of an air filled parallel plate capacitor have a common area of 50 cm2 and
are 1 cm apart. The capacitor is connected to a 10 V d.c. supply.
Two Parallel
Plates

Calculate:

(i) the capacitance of the capacitor, (7)

(ii) the magnitude of the charge on each plate. (7)

What is the net charge on the capacitor? (7)

Give a use for a capacitor. (3)

(permi vity of free space = 8.85 × 10–12 F m–1)

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(c) A semiconductor diode consists of two layers of silicon with small quan es of
phosphorus and boron added to the adjacent layers to increase its conduc on.

Explain how the presence of phosphorus and boron makes the silicon a be er
conductor. (6)

What happens at the boundary of the two adjacent layers? (9)

Describe what happens at the boundary when the semiconductor diode is

(i) forward biased, (ii) reverse biased. (9)

Give a use of a semiconductor diode. (4)

(d) In a nuclear reactor, the following reac on occurs:

235 141
U + 1 neutron → Ba + X + 3 neutrons + 202.5 MeV

Iden fy the element X. (6)

Calculate the mass difference between the reactants and the products in
the reac on. (9)

What is a nuclear chain reac on?

Give one condi on necessary for a chain reac on to occur. (9)

Give one advantage of nuclear energy. (4)

(speed of light = 3.0 × 108 m s−1; 1eV = 1.6 × 10–19 J)

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