Practice Paper 1A (HL IB Physics)

A tennis ball is thrown at a wall and then bounces off. 

Which row states the correct directions for the velocity, v, before and after hitting the wall?

A stone is released from a hot air balloon moving upwards with a uniform velocity of 25 m s^–1. 

If the hot air balloon is 30 m high when the stone was dropped, what is its height when the stone hits the ground?

A student of mass 50 kg climbs a vertical ladder 4.0 m tall in a time of 8.0 s. What is the power developed by the student against gravity?

A swinging clock pendulum is 12 cm long with a bob of mass 5 g. The linear acceleration of the swing is 4.2 m s⁻².

What is the torque acting on the pendulum bob at the amplitude of the swing? 

A man is running along a circular path with an angular velocity of 0.05 rad s⁻¹. His linear velocity is 2.5 m s⁻¹.

What is the radius of the path?

An object falls from rest from a height h close to the surface of the Moon. The Moon has no atmosphere.

When the object has fallen to height  above the surface, what is

The starship Genesis is 1.85 km long as measured by its crew. The starship has a docking station in orbit around Jupiter. The docking station is 1.32 km in length.

The crew of the Genesis are discussing how fast the starship can travel. One of the crew members says that if the Genesis flew fast enough through the docking station, the length of the Genesis would contract so much that, to an observer on the docking station, the starship would appear to be the same length as the docking station.

At what speed would the starship Genesis have to travel for this to be the case?

A ceremonial pole of length S is being held by two performers. There is one performer holding each end. Both performers are applying a force of 15 N at an angle of 60° to the pole. The total torque applied by the couple on the pole is 45 N m. 

What is the length of the ceremonial pole S ?

Two blocks with mass 5m and 3m are pushed along a smooth horizontal surface by an applied force F.

What is the magnitude of the force exerted between the blocks? 

A sample of solid aluminium is heated beyond its melting point. The graph shows the variation of temperature with time.

During which stage(s) is the aluminium melting?

The sun behaves as an approximate black-body radiator with peak energy radiation occurring at wavelength 51 × 10⁻⁸ m and a power of 4 × 10²⁶ W.

What is the correct expression for the radius of the Sun?

Which factors affect the amount of solar power incident on a given point on the surface of the Earth? 

1. Weather conditions
2. Latitude
3. Position of the Earth in its orbit of the Sun

A fixed mass of an ideal gas is at temperature T K. The pressure is quadrupled, and the volume is halved. What is the temperature after these changes?

The pressure-volume diagram below shows a cyclic process. The grey dashed lines represent isotherms.

Which option best describes the stages of the cyclic process, which begins at Z?

The diagram shows a simplified model of the energy balance of the Earth. 

What is the albedo of the Earth according to this model?

A resistor R is connected to the terminals of a battery of emf 9.0 V and internal resistance r.

A charge of 240 C through the resistor in two minutes. The power dissipated in the resistor as a result is 1440 J. What is the internal resistance r of the battery?  

A battery of electromotive force ϵ delivers charge Q to the load resistance. Which of the following statements is correct?

A sound wave has a wavelength of 0.40 m. What is the phase difference between two points along the wave which are 1.7 m apart?

A pipe of length L₁ has one open end and one closed end. A second pipe, of length L₂  is open at both ends. The frequency of the first harmonic of both pipes is the same. 

What is the ratio ?

Four diffraction experiments are performed using diffraction gratings with different numbers of slits.

Which row in the table below correctly matches the number of slits and the intensity pattern observed on the screen?

In a Young’s double-slit experiment, the spacing of the double slits is d and the distance between the slits and the screen on which fringes are formed is D. When monochromatic light of wavelength λ is incident on the slits the distance between adjacent fringes on the screen is s.

Which row shows another arrangement that produces a fringe spacing of s?

	Wavelength of the light	Distance between the slits and the screen	Spacing of double Slits
A.		2D	4d
B.		2D	2d
C.		2D	2d
D.		2D	8d

A section of the electromagnetic spectrum is shown. What could the labelled sections represent?

A simple pendulum performs simple harmonic motion. The pendulum bob has a mass m, the string has a length l, and the pendulum has a period T. 

Which is the correct value for the period T₁ if the mass of the pendulum bob is doubled and the length of the string is halved?

The graph shows the variation with time t of the acceleration a of an object X undergoing simple harmonic motion (SHM).

A second object Y oscillates with the same frequency as X but with a phase difference of  .

Which graph shows how the acceleration of object Y varies with t?

A stationary source emits sound wave with frequency . An observer moving towards the source measures the sound as having frequency . The speed of the observer is 20% of the speed of sound.

What is the the value of when the emitted frequency is 10 Hz?

Two separated, identical conducting spheres X and Y of charge –8 μC and +12 μC respectively, are brought into brief contact and then separated.

What is the final charge distribution on X and Y?

The diagram shows a uniform electric field in which equipotential lines are placed 3.0 cm apart.

A charge of –6.0 nC is placed at the equipotential line X.

Which of the following statements is correct?

The gravitational force between two identical uniform spheres of mass M is F when the distance between them is d.

If the radius of each sphere is x, what is the correct expression for mass, M?

Three long parallel straight wires, X, Y and Z, are equally separated and placed in the same plane in a vacuum. They carry a current of I, 2I and 4I respectively, as shown: 

It is known that the magnetic flux density B at a distance r due to a long straight wire carrying current I is given by: 

where μ₀ is the permeability of free space.

What is the force per unit length acting on wire X? 

A satellite of mass m is placed in a geostationary orbit. If the Earth’s angular velocity is ω rad s^–1, what is the circumference of the satellite’s orbit?

The graph shows the variation with angle θ of the magnetic flux φ through a coil that is rotating in a uniform magnetic field. θ is measured between the coil and the plane of the magnetic field lines.

Select the graph which correctly shows the variation in emf, ε with angle θ for the same coil.

The following is an energy level diagram for an atom. Electron transitions give rise to emission of spectrum wavelengths λ₁, λ₂, λ₃, λ₄, λ₅.

With reference to the diagram, which of the following statements is correct?

Alpha particles of mass m are accelerated from rest through a potential difference ΔV. Which of the following gives the de Broglie wavelength of the alpha particles as a result of the acceleration? 

Use the following data: 

• Planck's constant is h
• The magnitude of charge on an electron is e

The half-life of carbon-14 is 6000 years.

An ancient elephant tusk has been uncovered and its age is unknown. A 20 g sample of the tusk has an activity of 1.25 Bq due to carbon-14.

A 80 g sample of tusk taken from a living elephant has an activity of 20 Bq.

Use this information to determine the age of the ancient tusk.

A series of radioactive decays produce both alpha particles and anti-electron neutrinos.

Which row describes the nature of the energy spectrum of these two particles?

Deviations from Rutherford scattering are observed in experiments carried out at particular energies.

Which of the following changes to the nucleon number of the target nucleus and the speed of alpha particles would give the greatest deviation from the Rutherford scattering predictions?

Five regions are labelled on the Hertzsprung-Russell diagram shown. 

Which sequence could show part of the evolution of a star like the Sun? 

Three statements regarding the Bohr model of the hydrogen atom are:

Which statements originate from the idea that the circumference of the orbit must be an integer number of de Broglie wavelengths?

A photon of energy  and wavelength strikes a stationary electron and transfers a fraction of its energy as it scatters. The scattered photon has a wavelength of .

What is the speed of the recoiling electron?