Year 10 Physics Revision - Answers

1. What are the similarities and differences between average velocity and average speed?
Both are measured in ms-1, both are rates of change (how a quantity changes with time)
Velocity is defined as how displacement changes with time, speed is how distance changes with time.
Velocity is a vector quantity so needs magnitude and direction to be fully described, speed is a scalar
quantity so only requires magnitude to be fully described.

2. Lightning McQueen takes 80s to complete one lap of a 2km circuit. What is his average speed
and average velocity? average speed = 25 ms-1, average velocity = 0

3. A cricket ball is thrown from the boundary to the wickets at a horizontal average speed of 28ms -1.
How long will it take to reach the wickets which are 90m away? 3.21 s

4. A train is moving with an average speed of 90kmh -1. It takes 0.8 hours to reach its destination.
What is the distance for the trip? (Give your answer in m.) 72000m

5. Gogo travels around the Swan River in a circuit at an average velocity of 25kmh -1 for the whole trip
which takes 2.14hrs to complete by the time she reaches her departure point. Find Gogo’s final
displacement and the total distance she travelled. Displacement = 0, distance = 53.5 km

6. Hiro walks for 8 s at 1.3ms-1, then another 6 s at 2ms-1 in the same direction. Find
a. the total distance he travels 22.4 m
b. Hiro’s total displacement 22.4 m in the direction of original motion
c. His average velocity 1.6 ms-1 in the direction of original motion
d. If, instead of continuing in the same direction, Hiro walks in the opposite direction for 6 s
at 2 ms-1, find his total displacement and average velocity. Draw a vector diagram as
part of your answer. s=1.6 m in direction opposite to original motion, v av = 0.114 ms-1 in
direction opposite to original motion.

10.4 m
12 m

1.6 m

7. A car changes it’s velocity from 25ms-1 to 36ms-1 in 2.5s. What is the average acceleration of the
car? 4.4 ms-2

8. A ball rolling down a slope from rest is accelerated at 3.5ms -2. What is the ball’s velocity after 6s?
21 ms-1

9. A plane flying at 174ms-1 slows down uniformly at 3ms-2. What is the planes velocity after 28s? 90
ms-1

10. A cyclist brakes suddenly with a uniform deceleration of 3ms -2 and slows to 3ms-1 in 1.3s.
Determine the initial velocity of the cyclist. 6.9 ms-1
11. State Newton’s first law of motion. An object at rest will remain at rest and an object travelling at a
constant velocity will continue with the same velocity and direction unless acted on by an external
force.

12. Explain what is meant by the term “inertia.” Inertia is an object’s tendency to resist a change in its
motion.

13. Suki is moving furniture around her house. She pushes the couch with a force of 1200 N. Mai is
being annoying and pushes the couch from the other side against Suki, also with a force of 1200
N.

a. What happens to the couch? It doesn’t move as the forces are balanced
b. If Mai wears out and only exerts a force of 800 N, what will happen to the couch? The couch
will accelerate in Mai’s direction as there is a net force of 400 N towards her.

14. Katara is riding the bus to school. The driver slams on the brakes to avoid hitting a pedestrian who
has run across the road. Explain what happens to Katara when this happens and use Newton’s
laws of motion to explain why it happens.

Katara and the bus are initially travelling with the same velocity. When the driver slams on the brakes,
the bus slows down but, due to her inertia, Katara will continue to move forward until stopped by the
seat in front of her (or she braces herself).

15. According to Newton’s 1st law, an object travelling at a constant velocity will continue to travel at
that velocity if no other force acts on it. Why then does a pen that is pushed across a table
eventually stop?

A pen pushed across a table stops because an external force is acting on it – friction and air
resistance act in the opposite direction to the pen’s motion.

16. Sokka is trying to push his friends over. He easily pushes Toph over but has more difficulty
pushing Zuko over. Explain why this might be happening.

If Sokka exerts the same force on each friend, Toph must have a smaller mass than Zuko and hence,
less inertia. Because she has less inertia, her resistance to a change in her velocity is lower than
Zuko’s so she is easier to push over.

17. Bait is a glowtoad who loves jelly tarts. He goes on a mission to find some and
leaves his room. He doesn’t get very far when he realizes he’ll get into trouble
if he’s found outside his room.

The graph below describes his journey.

 a. How long does his journey take? 12 seconds
b. How far does he get from his room? 6m
c. Describe his motion between 0 and 3 seconds. Constant/uniform velocity of 2 ms-1 away from
original position/starting point
d. Describe his motion between 3 and 6 seconds. Stationary
e. What was his velocity between 8 and 10 seconds? Constant/uniform velocity of 1 ms-1
towards original position/starting point

18. Rayla rides her bike from home to the skatepark. A part of her journey is described by the velocity-
time graph below.

25

C
20
B
Velocity (m/s)

15

A
10 D

0
0 5 10 15 20 25
TIme (s)

a. Describe her motion at each of the sections marked A-D.

A: Between 0 and 4 seconds, Rayla is travelling at a constant velocity of 10.0 ms-1.

B: Between 4 and 14 seconds, Rayla uniformly accelerates at 1.00 ms-2.
C: Between 14 and 20 seconds, constant velocity of 20.0 ms-1.
D: Between 20 and 22 seconds, uniform deceleration of 10.0 ms-2 (or uniform acceleration of -
10.0 ms-2).

b. How far does Rayla travel in the first 14 seconds of her journey?
Area under the curve from 0 to 4 seconds: 10 m/s x 4 s = 40 m
Area under the curve from 4 to 14 seconds (rectangle + triangle): (10 m/s x 10 s) + (0.5 x 10
m/s x 10 s) = 150 m
Total: 40 + 150 = 190 m

19. Captain Jack is in a boat that is crossing a river. It has a maximum velocity of 5 ms -1 and travels
north across the river from the south end to the north end. The river is flowing from west to east at
1 ms-1.
a. Using a vector diagram, calculate the boat’s resultant velocity.
1 ms-1
 5 ms-1 5.10 ms-1

1
θ=tan −1 =11.3 °T
5

b. If the river is 150 m wide, how long does it take for Jack to cross?

s
v av =
t

s 150
t= = =29.4 s
v av 5.10

20. Fred drops a basketball to the ground. It takes 0.15 s to reach the ground. What is the velocity of
the ball just before it hits the ground? 1.47 ms-1

21. Tadashi throws a ball vertically upwards at 13ms -1.

a. What is the ball’s velocity after 1.35s? 0.23 ms-1
b. How long does it take for the ball to reach its maximum height? 1.33 s