GPE Problem Solving Practice

There is a 190 kg bell at the top of a tower that is 45 m high. How much GPE does it have?

• 84000 J

• 8600 J

• 820,000 J

A 966 kg roller coaster is at the top of a 72 m hill. How much GPE does it have?

• 680,000 J

• 70,000 J (but with 2 sig figs)

• 6,700,000 J

How much GPE does a 5.0 kg book have when it's on a 1.5 m high shelf?

• 74 J

• 7.5 J

• 720 J

You are on in-line skates at the top of a small hill. Your potential energy is equal to 1,001 J. The last time you checked, your mass was 60.0 kg. How tall is the hill? (How high up in the air are you?)

• 1.7 m

• 17 m

• 0.17 m

At what height is an object that has a mass of 50 kg, if its gravitational potential energy is 9800 J?

• 20 m

• 200 m

• 2 m

A 67.5 kg teenager is skateboarding along the top of a cement wall. While he does this he has 1058 J of GPE, How tall is the wall?

• 1.6 m

• 16 m

• 0.16 m

A 4.1 kg cat is on a tree branch. While it's there, it has 144 J of GPE. How high is the branch?

• 3.6 m

• 35 m

• 0.37 m

Some vultures fly very high so they can see a lot of territory. If a vulture has 1,452,360 J of gravitational potential energy when flying at 11400 m above the ground, what's its mass?

• 13 kg

• 130 kg

• 1.3 kg

A girl puts her cell phone on top of her 0.9 m tall desk. It has 2.6 J of GPE while it's there. What's its mass?

• 0.3 kg

• 3 kg

• 0.03 kg

If your mouth is about 1.6 m above the ground, and you are holding a banana next to your mouth getting ready to take a bite, it has 1.8 J of GPE. What's the mass of the banana?

• 0.11 kg

• 1.1 kg

• 0.012 kg