How Science Works Practice Test

Try this practice test before the real exams in November and March ...

First name:			Last name:
A student performs an experiment to find out if heat is transferred better by black or shiny objects.  He puts hot water into a black can and a shiny can and measures the temperature of each can every minute for 10 minutes.
1.  The student repeats his test 3 times.  Taking the average temperature drop makes his results more ...			2.  The student forgot that cooling also happens by evaporation and didn't put a lid on his cans.  This makes his results less ...
	A	Accurate		A	Accurate
	B	Sensitive		B	Sensitive
	C	Reliable		C	Reliable
	D	Precise		D	Precise
3.  He tried again using lids.  This time the results for each repeat were very close.  This shows his results are ...			4.  The student then repeated his whole experiment using a thermometer with smaller scale divisions.  This thermometer is more ...
	A	Accurate		A	Accurate
	B	Sensitive		B	Sensitive
	C	Reliable		C	Reliable
	D	Precise		D	Precise
5.  Using this new thermometer carefully should make the results more ...			6.  Unfortunately all his results showed a bigger temperature drop than before. What might have caused this?
	A	Accurate		A	It was a warm day
	B	Sensitive		B	He used less water in the cans
	C	Reliable		C	The lids had got wet and didn't fit so well
	D	Precise		D	He put the cans on a heat-proof mat
7.  He concluded that the black can cooled faster.  He checked this conclusion in a book.  This made his conclusion more  ...			8.  His teacher told him off for not using a measuring cylinder to measure out the water.  This introduced a ...
	A	Accurate		A	Zero error
	B	Sensitive		B	Random error
	C	Reliable		C	Systematic error
	D	Precise		D	Anomaly
9.  The teacher was wrong to tell him off because this error ...			10.  The student sells dark and white chocolate bars to his mates.  He makes more money on the dark ones, so he tells his friends that they are less likely to melt in their bags.  Based on his experiment this isn't true.  This is an example of ...
	A	Doesn't matter		A	Systematic error
	B	Is removed by averaging		B	An environmental issue
	C	Is smaller than the other errors in his test		C	Sensitivity
	D	Causes an opposite error in the cooling rate		D	Bias