Unit 6 States of matter

Exercise 6.5 Gas pressure

This exercise will give you the chance to make sure you understand what

causes gas pressure.

1 For each sentence, draw a circle round the set of words that correctly
completes it.

Gas pressure is caused when particles:

collide with each other

collide with the surfaces around them

Gas pressure increases when particles are:

squashed into a smaller space

allowed to spread out into a larger space

Gas pressure increases when a gas is:

made colder

made hotter

2 Ashraf is at an airport. He has a packet of rice crackers. The packet contains

a gas.

Crackers

58 6 States of matter
 Unit 6 States of matter

Ashraf takes the packet onto an aeroplane. When the aeroplane is high in the
sky, the air pressure inside the cabin gets less. The packet inflates.

Crackers

a When Ashraf was at the airport, the gas inside the packet was at the same
pressure as the air around it.

What does this mean? Underline the correct answer.

• Gas particles inside the packet collided with the packet more often than

gas particles outside the packet.

Gas particles inside the packet collided with the packet less often than

gas particles outside the packet.

Gas particles inside the packet collided with the packet just as often as

gas particles outside the packet.

b What changed when Ashraf was in the aeroplane? Underline the correct
answer.
• Gas particles outside the packet collided with it less often than they did
at the airport.
Gas particles outside the packet collided with it more often than they

did at the airport.

Use your answers to a and b to explain why the packet inflated when
Ashraf was in the aeroplane.

The air pressure inside the airplane decreases, the volume of air trapped inside the crisp

packet will increase. As the gas inside the packet increase and because the air pressure

in airplane is less, it will push out and expand the packet hence the packet inflated.

6 States of matter 59