Stepping Up with PE and KE - Questions

The Stepping Up with PE and KE Concept Builder is comprised of 3 Difficulty Levels. Each Difficulty Level presents a unique motion scenario with numerical values for mass and height. Students must analyze the motion to determine the PE and KE values at three or more specified locations along the path. Students are told to assume mechanical energy conservation. There are three sets of PE and KE values for the Apprentice Difficulty Level. The Master Level includes 4 sets of PE and KE values and the Wizard Level includes 5 sets of PE and KE values. Numerical values of mass and height are chosen at random from a list of permitted values. Given the random nature of question generation, it is difficult to list all the possible combinations of mass and heights. 

The number of misses are tracked and used to determine a Health Percentage. The Health Percentage is reported once the analysis is complete. Students have the option of repeating the Difficulty Level in order to improve their Health Percentage.

The 3 different difficulty levels are shown below. Teachers are encouraged to view the levels in order to judge which level(s) of difficulty is(are) most appropriate for their classes. 

The Physics Classroom grants teachers and other users the right to print these questions for private use. Users are also granted the right to copy the text and modify it for their own use. However, this document should not be uploaded to other servers for distribution to and/or display by others. The Physics Classroom website should remain the only website or server from which the document is distributed or displayed. We also provide a PDF that teachers can use under the same conditions. We have included a link to the PDF near the bottom of this page.

 

Stepping Up with PE and KE

Note: There is only one question with multiple blanks in each Difficulty Levels. The numerical values that are in the question are selected at random from a large bank of possible values. As such, two side-by-side students are unlikely to have identical questions. We are showing just one of the many possible values in the problems below.

 
Activity 1: Apprentice Difficulty Level