GED Scientific Practices Practice Questions, Set 2

1.A science center builds a model of the solar system. The Sun is a ball 1 m across, and Earth is a bead about 9 mm across placed about 107 m away. Which information does this model show best?

1. A.How hot the Sun’s surface is in degrees
2. B.What Earth’s atmosphere is made of
3. C.How small Earth is compared with the Sun
4. D.How long a year lasts on each planet

2.A nurse notices that patients who take a short walk each day after surgery seem to leave the hospital sooner. Which statement is a testable hypothesis?

1. A.Walking after surgery is always a pleasant experience
2. B.Patients who walk daily after surgery go home sooner
3. C.Some patients walk more often than other patients do
4. D.Hospitals should require all patients to walk daily

3.A student’s hypothesis is: “If a magnet is cooled in a freezer, it will pick up more paper clips.” Which result would support the hypothesis?

1. A.The magnet picks up more clips after being cooled
2. B.The freezer is about 25°C colder than the room
3. C.The magnet picks up the same number of clips both times
4. D.The magnet picks up fewer clips after being cooled

4.A school tests whether a reading app raises test scores. It gives the app to its honors class and compares their scores with a regular class that does not use the app. What is the main problem with this design?

1. A.Reading scores cannot be measured with a test
2. B.The groups differed in ability before the study
3. C.The app was used by only one group of students
4. D.The study used students instead of adult readers

5.A gardener wants to know whether mulch keeps soil moist. The gardener puts mulch on one bed and measures its moisture every day for a month, but does not measure any bed without mulch. What is missing from this experiment?

1. A.A hypothesis about a dependent variable
2. B.Enough days of data to show a trend
3. C.A control bed without mulch to compare
4. D.A way to measure the soil’s moisture

6.A coffee shop asks 5 customers to rate a new drink, and all 5 love it. The owner plans to add the drink at every location. What is the best reason to collect more data first?

1. A.The customers did not drink it at the same time
2. B.Five people may not represent most customers
3. C.The drink should be tested on employees first
4. D.Ratings cannot be collected from coffee drinkers

7.A line graph shows the temperature of a cup of tea left on a counter. The line drops steeply for the first 10 minutes, then drops more and more slowly, and finally levels off at 22°C. What does the flat part of the line most likely show?

1. A.The tea has started to warm back up again
2. B.The thermometer stopped working after the first 10 minutes
3. C.The tea has cooled to the temperature of the room
4. D.The tea has frozen solid on the counter

8.A driving manual gives typical stopping distances on dry pavement. 30 km/h: 14 m 50 km/h: 32 m 70 km/h: 58 m Which statement best describes the pattern?

1. A.Stopping distance was not related to speed at all
2. B.Stopping distance went down as speed went up
3. C.Each speed increase added more distance than the last
4. D.Stopping distance rose by the same amount each step

9.A student drops a tennis ball, a rubber ball and a golf ball, each from a height of 1 m onto the same tile floor, and measures how high each one bounces. Which is a controlled variable in this experiment?

1. A.The type of ball being dropped
2. B.How high each ball bounces back
3. C.The material each ball is made of
4. D.The height the balls are dropped from

10.Two students time one swing of the same pendulum. Student A: one trial, 2.0 seconds Student B: ten trials, average 1.8 seconds, all between 1.7 and 1.9 seconds Whose result is more reliable, and why?

1. A.Student B’s, because many close trials reduce random error
2. B.Student B’s, because a smaller time is always more exact
3. C.Student A’s, because one careful trial has no error
4. D.Neither, because the two answers do not match exactly

11.A lab reports that a new material makes solar panels 30% more efficient. Five other labs follow the same steps exactly, but none of them gets the same result. What should scientists conclude?

1. A.No material can make solar panels more efficient
2. B.The first result is proven because it came first
3. C.The other five labs must have used broken tools
4. D.The claim is not reliable unless others can repeat it

12.A gardener tests two fertilizers on 10 tomato plants each. Fertilizer A: average 31 cm, plants ranged from 25 to 37 cm Fertilizer B: average 32 cm, plants ranged from 26 to 38 cm Which conclusion is best supported?

1. A.The two fertilizers produced about the same growth
2. B.Fertilizer A is better because it costs less
3. C.Fertilizer A kept some plants from growing
4. D.Fertilizer B clearly grows taller tomato plants than A

13.In the early 1900s, many scientists pictured the atom as a ball of positive charge with electrons spread through it. Then an experiment fired tiny positive particles at thin gold foil. Most passed straight through, but a few bounced almost straight back. How did scientists respond to this result?

1. A.They decided atoms do not exist inside solid metals
2. B.They concluded that gold atoms are made only of electrons
3. C.They kept the old model and ignored the bounced particles
4. D.They revised the model to include a small, dense nucleus

14.A city uses a computer model to plan for flooding. The model predicts how high a river will rise for different amounts of rain. 2 inches of rain: river rises 3 ft 4 inches: rises 7 ft 6 inches: rises 12 ft Last spring, 4 inches of rain fell and the river rose 7.5 ft. What does last spring’s result suggest about the model?

1. A.The model matched the real result fairly closely
2. B.The model can predict only very small storms
3. C.The model shows rain does not affect the river
4. D.The model failed completely and should be thrown out

15.A bar graph shows the share of adults in a town who got a flu shot each year. 2019: 42% 2020: 51% 2021: 55% 2022: 49% 2023: 47% Which description of the graph is accurate?

1. A.The share peaked in 2021 and then declined
2. B.The share was highest in 2020 and fell after
3. C.The share rose every year from 2019 to 2023
4. D.The share fell every year after 2019

16.A water utility tests a new leak-detection program. Water lost to leaks before the program: 800,000 gallons per month Water lost to leaks after the program: 600,000 gallons per month By what percent did leak losses drop?

1. A.33%
2. B.25%
3. C.75%
4. D.20%

17.A soil scientist measures how much rainwater soaks into four test plots in one hour. Plot 1: 18 mm Plot 2: 22 mm Plot 3: 29 mm Plot 4: 15 mm What is the mean amount absorbed?

1. A.84 mm
2. B.21 mm
3. C.20 mm
4. D.14 mm

18.A nurse researcher studies whether the color of a hospital room affects how well patients sleep. Patients are placed in blue, white or yellow rooms, and a sleep tracker records hours of sleep each night. What is the independent variable?

1. A.The color of the patients’ rooms
2. B.The sleep tracker used by patients
3. C.The hours of sleep each night
4. D.The number of nights in the study

19.A warehouse manager notices more moths near the loading dock on nights when the bright dock lights are left on. Which is the best hypothesis for the manager to test?

1. A.Moths are harmful insects that should be removed
2. B.Moths are more common in summer than in winter
3. C.If the dock lights are on, then more moths will gather
4. D.If moths gather, then the dock lights will burn out sooner

20.A park ranger writes four notes about a pond. Which note is an observation rather than an inference?

1. A.The ducks left because the pond water is polluted
2. B.The fish must be hiding from a predator
3. C.The pond is probably drying up from the heat
4. D.The water level is 30 cm lower than last week

21.A news report finds that cities with more fire stations also report more fires each year. Which explanation is most reasonable?

1. A.Fires cause cities to tear down fire stations
2. B.Larger cities have both more fires and stations
3. C.The report proves that fewer stations prevent fires
4. D.Fire stations cause more fires to start

22.Four groups test whether a new bandage helps cuts heal faster. Which study design will give the most reliable results?

1. A.One nurse tries the bandage on her own cut
2. B.Two hundred patients are randomly given either bandage
3. C.Twenty patients choose the bandage they prefer
4. D.Ten volunteers who already like the brand try it

23.A city wants to know how many hours of exercise its adults get each week. A researcher surveys 300 people as they leave a large gym. What is the main problem with this sample?

1. A.Gym members likely exercise more than others
2. B.The researcher asked only adults, not children
3. C.The sample of 300 people is far too large
4. D.The survey asks about only one kind of habit

24.A company gives a new energy drink to 50 workers and reports that 40 of them felt more alert during the afternoon. No other group was studied. Which change would most improve this study?

1. A.Report the results as a percent instead of a count
2. B.Ask workers to say how much they liked the taste
3. C.Give the drink to the same 50 workers again
4. D.Add a similar group that gets a look-alike drink