MTEL Test Study Guides | MTEL Test Flashcards

MTEL Physics Test Answer Key

1. D: Scientific Method is a set of procedures used to study natural phenomena. It provides guidelines with which to pose questions, analyze data and reach conclusions. It is used to investigate an event, gain knowledge or correct earlier conclusions and integrate new information with previously learned data. It rarely follows a predictable path and testing one hypothesis usually leads to more questions.

2. D: Physics is a fundamental, experimental science that studies matter, motion, energy, space and time and how they interact. Its goal is to understand the natural world by formulating and testing hypotheses in an effort to develop scientific laws that predict phenomena. Other scientific disciplines are complex applications of the laws of physics.

3. A: Physicists specialize in either theoretical (the development of new theories) or experimental (testing theories and discovering new phenomena) research. Physics is divided into four disciplines: condensed matter physics, atomic, molecular and optical physics, high-energy physics, and astronomy and astrophysics.

4. B: Motion is the continuous change of location as a result of force (lift, push or pull). It is explained as velocity (rate of speed), acceleration (increase in speed), displacement (the act of moving from its usual place) and time. Once an object is in motion, it acquires momentum (a measure of a body in motion).

5. C: Time is “a non-spatial continuum in which events occur in apparently irreversible succession from the past through the present to the future,” i.e. a measuring system devised by humans – Immanuel Kant’s view. Sir Isaac Newton believed time is a fundamental, measurable dimension of the universe in which events occur in a sequence.