BAL BHARATI PUBLIC SCHOOL, DWARKA

CLASS-VI
‘Fun with magnets’
NOTES
Ques-1. You are given a piece of iron and a bar magnet. How can you magnetize the
piece of iron? Explain and draw a diagram as homework.

Ans-1 Place the piece of iron on a table and hold it down firmly and stroke it about 30
times, from one end to the other end with one pole of the bar magnet. After you reach the
other end lift the magnet high and bring it back to the first end. You will find that if you
stroke with the north pole of the magnet, the end of the iron piece from where we started
stroking becomes the North Pole. The other end has become the South Pole. This method
is known as single touch method.

Ques-2 Give the step by step method you will adapt to test if a piece of magnetic
material is a magnet.

Ans-2 Take any magnetic material to the north pole of a magnet, if it attracts take it to the
South Pole and if it attracts there also it is not a magnet but if it repels, then it is a
magnet. Hence we say that repulsion is the sure test of magnetism.

Ques-3 What do you expect will happen if we go on breaking a magnet?

Ans-3 If we will cut a bar magnet into two, we will get two separate magnets with both
the poles in each, if we will cut them further we will get as many pieces as it was cut into
magnets with both North Pole and South Pole in each of them. Thus we conclude that we
can never isolate the north and south poles of a magnet.

Ques-4 Why does a freely suspended magnet point always in the north-south
direction?

Ans-4 A freely suspended magnet point in the north-south direction because the earth
behaves like a huge bar magnet with its magnetic poles near geographical north and south
poles. The south pole of the earth’s magnet is near geographical North Pole whereas the
north pole of the earth’s magnet is near geographical South Pole.