KEY STAGE 2: Science is Easy – Physics

Answer the following questions by circling one of the three options given: always, sometimes, or never.

a) Earth receives light from the Sun.

b) The moon produces light.

c) The Sun shines on London.

d) You should look directly at the Sun.

e) Light travels in straight lines.

f) You can see without light.

Preston is examining how different materials produce different amounts of friction. He has a toy car, and three different strips of material of the same length. He plans to make the car roll across each type of material and measure how far each of them travels. The first material is a smooth pane of glass, the second is a plank of wood, and the third is a strip of carpet. The shorter the distance the car travels on a material, the more friction has been generated.

a) How can Preston ensure that he carries out a fair test?

b) Name three pieces of apparatus that Preston will need for this test.

c) Write out some step-by-step instructions that Preston could follow to carry out
this experiment.

d) What do you expect the result of Preston’s experiment to be?

Look at the following diagram representing our solar system. You will notice that there are some planets missing. Use your knowledge of the order of the planets to complete the diagram, by drawing the missing ones and labelling them. Don’t worry about getting the sizes to scale!

Describe what happens when the opposite poles of two magnets are near each other.

Question 1

a) Always

b) Never

c) Sometimes

d) Never

e) Always

f) Never

Question 2

a) To ensure that he carries out a fair test, Preston should use the same car throughout, do multiple tests on each material, make sure the materials are the same size and make the cars move at the same speed by using the same ramp for each test.

b) Preston will need a toy car, a ruler to measure how far the car rolls, a ramp, and the three materials.

c) A possible list of instructions for this test could be:

• Set up the first material to be tested so it lies at the foot of the ramp.
• Place the car at the very top of the ramp or at a clearly marked line.
• Let the car roll down the ramp and across the material.
• From the foot of the ramp, measure how far the car rolled in centimetres.
• Record this result in a table.
• Repeat the last four steps another couple of times, and write down all the results.
• Repeat from step 1 with the other two materials.
• Write down a conclusion, describing your results and explaining how you made the test fair.

d) You should expect the car to travel the furthest on the glass surface, i.e. that glass produces the least amount of friction out of the three materials. You would also expect and the carpet to produce the most amount of friction.

Question 3

Your diagram should look something like this:

Question 4

a) Repel