JR.

PHYSICS
[Practice Questions]
Long Answer type questions :
Work, Energy and Power
1. Develop the notions of work and kinetic energy and show that it leads to
work energy theorem.
2. What are collisions ? Explain the possible types of collisions ? Develop the
theory of one dimensional elastic collision.
3. State and prove law of conservations of energy in case of a freely falling
body.

Oscillations
1. Define simple harmonic motion. Show that the motion of (point) projection
of a particle performing uniform circular motion, on any diameter, is
simple harmonic.
2. Show that the motion of a simple pendulum is simple harmonic and hence
derive an equation for its time period. What is seconds pendulum?
3. Derive the equation for the kinetic energy and potential energy of a simple
harmonic oscillator and show that the total energy of a particle in simple
harmonic motion is constant at any point on its path.

Thermodynamics
1. Explain reversible and irreversible processes. Describe the working of
Carnot engine.
2. State second law of thermodynamics. How is heat engine different from a
refrigerator.

Short Answer type questions :

Motion in s Straight Line

1. A particle moves in a straight line with uniform acceleration. Its velocity at
time t = 0 is v1 and at time t = t is v2.
2. Can the velocity of an object be in a direction other than the direction of
acceleration of the object? If so, give an example.
3. A parachutist flying in an aeroplane jumps when it is at a height of 3 km
above ground. He opens his parachute when he is about 1km above
ground. Describe his motion.
4. A bird holds a fruit in its beak and flies parallel to the ground. It lets go of
the fruit at some height. Describe the trajectory of the fruit as it falls to
the ground as seen by (a) the bird (b) a person on the ground.
5. A man runs across the roof of a tall building and jumps horizontally on to
the (lower)roof of an adjacent building. If his speed is 9 m s-1 and the
horizontal distance between the buildings is 10 m and the height
difference between the roofs is 9 m, will he be able to land on the next
building? (take g=10 ms-2 )
6. A ball is dropped from the roof of a tall building and simultaneously
another ball is thrown horizontally with some velocity from the same roof.
Which ball lands first? Explain your answer.
7. A ball is dropped from a building and simultaneously another ball is
projected upward with some velocity. Describe the change in relative
velocities of the balls as a function of time.
8. A typical raindrop is about 4mm in diameter. If a raindrop falls from a
cloud which is at 1 km above the ground, estimate its momentum when it
hits the ground.
9. Show that the maximum height reached by a projectile launched at an
angle of 45° is one quarter of its range.

Motion in a Plane
1. State parallelogram law of vectors. Derive an expression for the magnitude and
direction of the resultant vector.
2. Show that a boat must move at an angle with respect to river water in order to
cross the river in minimum time?
3. Define unit vector, null vector and position vector.
4. If a  b  a  b prove that the angle between a and b is 90 .
5. Show that the trajectory of an object thrown at certain angle with the horizontal is
a parabola.
6. Explain the terms the average velocity and instantaneous velocity. When are they
equal?
U 2 sin 2 
7. Show that the maximum height and range of a projectile are and
2g
U 2 sin 2
respectively where the terms have their regular meanings.
g
8. A force 2i + j – k newton acts on a body which is initially at rest. At the end of 20
seconds the velocity of the body is 4i + 2j – 2k ms 1 . What is the mass of the body?
 Laws of Motion
1. Define the terms momentum and impulse. State and explain the law of
conservation of liner momentum. Give examples.
2. Why are shock absorbers used in motor cycles and cars?
3. Explain the terms limiting friction, dynamic friction and rolling friction.
4. Explain advantages and disadvantages of friction.
5. Mention the methods used to decrease friction.
6. State the laws of rolling friction.
7. Why is pulling the lawn roller preferred to pushing it?

Systems of Particles and Rotational Motion

1. Distinguish between centre of mass and centre of gravity.
2. Explain about the centre of mass of earth-moon system and its rotation around the
sun.
3. Define vector product. Explain the properties of a vector product with two
examples.
4. Define angular velocity ( u ). Derive v  r .
5. Define angular acceleration and torque. Establish the relation between angular
acceleration and torque.

Gravitation
1. State Kepler’s laws of planetary motion.
2. Derive the relation between acceleration due to gravity (g) at the surface of a
planet and gravitational constant (G).
3. How does the acceleration due to gravity (g) change for the same values of height
(h) and depth (d).
4. What is orbital velocity? Obtain an expression for it.
5. What is escape velocity? Obtain an expression for it.
6. What is a geostationary satellite? State its uses.

Mechanical Properties of Solids

1. Define Hook’s Law of elasticity, proportionality limit, permanent set and breaking
stress.
2. Define modulus of elasticity, stress, strain and poisson’s ratio.
3. Define young’s modulus, bulk modulus and shear modulus.
4. Define strain energy and derive the equation for the same.
5. Describe the behavior of a wire under gradually increasing load.
 Mechanical Properties of Fluids
1. Explain hydraulic lift and hydraulic brakes.
2. What is hydrostatic paradox?
3. What is venture-meter? Explain how it is used.
4. What is dynamic lift with examples.
5. What is Reynold’s number? What is its significance?
6. Explain surface Tension and surface energy.

Thermal Properties of Matters

1. Explain Celsius and Fahrenheit scales of temperature. Obtain the relation between
Celsius and Fahrenheit scales of temperature.
2. Pendulum clocks generally go fast in winter and slow in summer. Why?
3. In what way is the anomalous behaviour of water advantageous to aquatic
animals?
4. Explain conduction, convection and radiation with examples.

Thermodynamics

1. Obtain an expression for the work done by an ideal gas during isothermal change.
2. Obtain an expression for the work done by an ideal gas during adiabatic change
and explain.
3. Compare isothermal and an adiabatic process.
4. Explain the following process
i) Cyclic process with example
ii) Non cyclic process with example
5. Write a short note on Quasi- static process

Problems:

Units and Measurements

1. State the number of significant figures in the following
a) 6729 b) 0.024 c) 0.08240 d) 6.032 e) 4.57 x 108
2. The measured mass and volume of a body are 2.24g and 4.7 cm3 respectively with
possible errors 0.01 g and 0.1 cm3 . Find the maximum error in density.
3. The error in measurement of radius of a sphere is 1%. What is the error in the
measurement of volume?
 Motion in a Straight Line
1. A man walks on a straight road from his home to a market 2.5 km away with a
speed of 5 km h 1 . Finding the market closed, he instantly turns and walks back
home with a speed of 7.5 km h 1 . What is the (a) magnitude of average velocity
and (b) average speed of the man over the time interval 0 to 50 min.
2. A car travels the first third of a distance with a speed of 10kmph, the second third
at 20kmph and the last third at 60kmph. What is its mean speed over the entire
distance?
3. A bullet moving with a speed of 150 m s 1 strikes a tree and penetrates 3.5cm
before stopping. What is the magnitude of its retardation in the tree and the time
taken for it to stop after striking the tree?
4. A motorist drives north for 30 min at 85km/h and then stops for 15 min. He
continues travelling north and covers 130km in 2 hours. what is his total
displacement and average velocity?

Oscillations
1. A particle executes SHM such that, the maximum velocity during the
oscillation is numerically equal to half the maximum acceleration. What is
the time period ?
2. A mass of 2 kg attached to a spring of force constant 260Nm-1 makes 100
oscillations. What is the time taken ?
3. A simple harmonic oscillator has a time period of 2s. What will be the
change in the phase 0.25 s after leaving the mean position?
4. The mass and radius of a planet are double that of the earth. If the time
period of a sample pendulum on the earth is T, find the time period on the
planet.
5. Calculate the change in the length of a simple pendulum of length 1m,
when its period of oscillation changes from 2 s to 1.5 s.

Thermodynamics
1. If a monoatomic ideal gas of volume 1 litre at NTP is compressed (i)
adiabatically to half of its volume, find the work done on the gas. Also find
(ii) the work done if the compression is isothermal. ( γ = 5/3)
2. Five moles of hydrogen when heated through 20 K expand by an amount of
8.3 x 10-3 m3 under a constant pressure of 105 N/m2. If Cγ= 20 J/mole K,
find Cp.

Motion in a Plane
1. Ship A is 10km due west of ship B. Ship A is heading directly north at a speed of 30
km/h, while ship B is heading in a direction 60 west of north at a speed of
20km/h.
i) Determine the magnitude of the velocity of ship B relative to ship A
ii) What will be their distance of closet approach?
2. If  is the angle of projection, R the range, h the maximum height, T the time of
flight then show that (a) tan   4h / R and (b) h  gT 2 / 8
3. Wind is blowing from the south at 5 ms-1. To a cyclist it appears to be blowing from
the east at 5 ms-1. Show that the velocity of the cyclist is ms-1 towards north-east.
4. A person walking at 4 m/s finds rain drops falling slantwise in to his face with a
speed of 4 m/s at an angle of 300 with the vertical. Show that the actual speed of the
rain drops is 4 m/s.

Laws of Motion
1. The linear momentum of a particle as a function of time t is given by p  a  bt ,
where a and b are positive constants. What is the force acting on the particle?
2. Calculate the time needed for a net force of 5 N to change the velocity of 10kg mass
by 2m/s.

Work, Energy and Power

1. A machine gun fires 360 bullets per minute and each bullet travels with a
velocity of 600 ms-1. If the mass of each bullet is 5 gm, find the power of
the machine gun ?
2. Find the useful power used in pumping 3425 m3 of water per hour from a
well 8 m deep to the surface, supposing 40% of the horse power during
pumping is wasted. What is the horse power of the engine ?
3. A pump is required to lift 600 kg of water per minute from a well 25m
deep and to eject it with a speed of 50 ms-1. Calculate the power required
to perform the above task.

Systems of Particles and Rotational Motion

1. Three particles each of mass 100g are placed at the vertices of an equilateral
triangle of the side length 10 cm. find the moment of inertia of the system about an
axis passing through the centroid of the triangle and perpendicular to its plane.
2. Four particles each of mass 100g are placed at the corners of a square of side 10cm.
find the moment of inertia of the system about an axis passing through the centre of
the square and perpendicular to its plane. Find also the radius of gyration of the
system.
3. Four spheres each diameter 2a and mass ‘m’ are placed with their centres on the
four corners of a square of the side b. calculate the moment of inertia of the system
about any side of the square.

Mechanical Properties of Solids

1. A copper wire of 1 mm diameter is stretched by applying a force of 10N. find the
stress in the wire.
2. A tungsten wire of length 20 cm is stretched by 0.1 cm. find the strain on the wire.
3. If an iron wire is stretched by 1%, what is the strain on the wire?
4. A copper cube of side of length 1 cm is subjected to a pressure of 100 atmosphere.
Find the change in its volume if the bulk modulus of copper is 1.4 1011 Nm2
1atm  110 5
Nm 2 
5. Determine the pressure required to reduce the given volume of water by 2%. Bulk
modulus of water is 2.2 109 Nm2 .

Very Short Answer type Questions:

Physical World
1. What is physics?
2. What is the discovery of C.V. Raman?
3. What are the fundamental forces in nature?
4. Which if the following has symmetry:
i) Acceleration due to gravity.
ii) Law of gravitation.
5) What is the contribution of S. Chandra sekhar to physics?

Units and Measurements

1. Distinguish between accuracy and precision.
2. What are the different types of errors that can occur in a measurement?
3. How can systematic errors be minimized or eliminated?
4. Illustrate how the result of a measurement is to be reported indicating the error
involved.
5. What are significant figures and what do they represent when reporting the result
of a measurement?
6. Distinguish between fundamental units and derived units.
7. Why do we have different fundamental units and derived units.
8. What is dimensional analysis?
9. Express unified atomic mass unit in kg.

Motion in a Straight Line

1. The state of motion and rest are relative. Explain.
2. How is average velocity different from instantaneous velocity?
3. Give an example where the velocity of an object is zero but its acceleration is not
zero.
4. A vehicle travels half the velocity of an object is zero but the other half with speed v2
. What is the average speed?

Motion in a Plane
1. The vertical component of a vector is equal to its horizontal component. What is the
angle made by the vector with x- axis?
2. A vector V makes an angle e with the horizontal. The vector is rotated through an
angle e. Does this rotation change the vector V?
3. Two forces of magnitudes 3 units and 5 units act at 60 with each other. What is the
magnitude of their resultant?
4. A  i  j . What is the angle between the vector and x-axis?
5. When two right angled vector of magnitude 7 units and 24 units combine, what is
the magnitude of their resultant?
6. If P=2i + 4j + 14k and Q= 4i + 4j + 10k find the magnitude of P + Q.
7. Can a vector of magnitude zero have nonzero components?
8. What is the acceleration of a projectile at the top of its trajectory?
9. Can two vectors of unequal magnitude add up to give the zero vector ? Can three
unequal vectors add up to give the zero vector ?

Laws of Motion
1. What is inertia? What gives the measure of inertia?
2. When a bullet is fired from a gun, the gun gives a kick in the backward direction.
Explain.
3. Why does a heavy rifle not recoil as strongly as a light rifle using the same
cartridges?
4. If a bomb at rest explodes into two pieces, the pieces must travel in opposite
directions. Explain.
5. Define force. What are the basic forces in nature?
6. Can the coefficient of friction be greater than one?
7. Why does the car with a flattened tyre stop sooner than the one with inflated tyres?
8. A horse has to pull harder during the start of the motion than later. Explain.
9. What happens to the coefficient of friction if the weight of the body is doubled?

Systems of Particles and Rotational Motion

1. Is it necessary that a mass should be present at the centre of mass of any system?
2. What is the difference in the position of a girl carrying a bag in one of her hands
and another girl carrying a bag in each of her two hands?
3. Why are spokes provided in a bicycle wheel?
4. We cannot open or close the door by applying force at the hinges. Why?
5. Why do we prefer a spanner of longer arm as compared to the spanner of shorter
arm?
6. By spinning eggs on a table top, how will you distinguish a hard boiled egg from a
raw egg?
7. Why should a helicopter necessarily have two propellers?
8. Why is it easier to balance a bicycle in motion?

Mechanical Properties of Solids

1. State Hooke’s Law of elasticity.
2. State the units and dimensions of stress.
3. State the examples of nearly perfect elastic and plastic bodies.

Mechanical Properties of Fluids

1. Define average pressure. Mention it’s unit and dimensional formula. Is it a scalar or
a vector?
2. Define viscosity. What are it’s units and dimensions?
3. What is the principle behind the carburetor of an automobile?
4. What is magnus effect?
5. Why are drops and bubbles spherical?
6. Give the expression for the excess pressure in liquid drop.
7. Give the expression for the soap bubble in air.
8. Give the expression for the excess pressure in an air bubble inside the liquid.
9. What are water proofing agents and water wetting agents? What do they do?
10. What is angle of contact?
11. When water flows through a pipe, which of the layers moves fastest and slowest?

Thermal Properties of Matter

1. Distinguish between heat and temperature.
2. What are the lower and upper fixing points in Celsius and Fahrenheit scales?
3. Can a substance contract on heating? Give an example.
4. Why gaps are left between rails on a railway track?
5. Why do liquids have no linear and areal expansions?
6. What is latent heat of fusion?
7. What is latent heat of vapourisation?
8. Why utensils are coated black? Why the bottom of the utensils are made of copper?
9. State Weins displacement law?
10. Ventilators are provided in rooms just below the roof. Why?
11. Define emissivity.
12. What is greenhouse effect? Explain global warming.
13. State the conditions under which Newton’s law of cooling is applicable.
14. The roof of buildings are often painted white during summer. Why?

Thermodynamics
1. Define molar specific heat capacity.
2. Why a heat engine with 100% efficiency can never be realized in practise?
3. Why does the brake drum of an automobile get heated up while moving down at
constant speed?
4. Can a room be cooled by leaving the door of an electric refrigerator open?
5. A sound wave is sent into a gas pipe. Does its internal energy change?
6. Explain the following process i) Isochoric process ii) Isobaric process.

Kinetic Theory
1. Define means free path.
2. When does a real gas behave like an ideal gas?
3. State Boyle’s law and Charles Law.
4. State Dalton’s Law of partial pressures
5. Pressure of an ideal gas in container is independent of shape of the container-
explain.
6. Explain the concept of degrees of freedom for molecules of gas.
7. What is the expression between pressure and kinetic energy of a gas molecule?
8. The absolute temperature of a gas is increased 3 times. What will be the increase in
rms velocity of the gas molecule?