High School Science Released Questions

Bella is writing a research paper on ocean currents. Which two sources should she consult?

• an article published by a university or a government agency

• an article from a website containing advertisements

• an article published in 2015 and updated a week ago

• an article appearing in the blog post of a teenage surfer

• an article that does not state the author’s name and details

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In which two ways can scientists exhibit ethical behavior?

• cleaning their labs regularly to boost hygiene

• creating products that improve people’s lives

• eating and drinking only during breaks

• using only data that supports their hypothesis

• remaining impartial about data while conducting experiments

Which description reflects safe lab behavior?

• A. Justin eats his breakfast, lunch, and healthy snacks on the lab countertops.

• B. Felicia disposes of all chemicals by dumping them behind the school gymnasium.

• C. Jose’s workstation is cluttered with backpacks, pencils, and spilled liquids.

• D. Sandra wears goggles when handling materials that can damage her eyes.

What type of information is available to scientists through a Global Positioning System (GPS) device?

• A. the pH level and metal content of a material

• B. the temperature and humidity of an area

• C. the precise location of weather-related phenomena

• D. the frequency of radio waves and UV rays

Juanita’s primary job is monitoring Earth’s atmosphere and predicting climate changes. Which discipline of Earth and space science does she belong to?

• A. astronomy

• B. geology

• C. meteorology

• D. oceanography

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Serena is a research student who has conducted an experiment on the discoloration of marble. Read about Serena’s experiment. Then identify two flaws in her experiment’s design.

Serena sees an article about the Taj Mahal, a medieval marble monument in India. She reads that the white monument is beginning to turn a dull yellow-brown. Serena admires the Taj Mahal and is eager to learn what might be causing the yellowing. She formulates a hypothesis that the yellow-brown tinge may be caused by air pollution from black carbon, brown carbon, or methane, combined with wind erosion.

To test her hypothesis, she decides to study the effects of these air pollutants and wind on white marble. She finds three identical pieces of white marble and exposes one of them to air containing black carbon, one to air with brown carbon, and one to air with methane. She also places a fan on two of the samples, varying the speed of the air stream in regular intervals. After a few days, the marble samples begin changing color, becoming grayish. Serena learns that air pollution caused the discoloration. However, she is not sure how it became gray instead of yellow and what exactly caused the discoloration.

• She used identical pieces of marble for her samples.

• She introduced at least one confounding variable.

• She tried to test multiple hypotheses at a time.

• She attributed the marble discoloration to wind erosion.

• She used a mechanically-generated air stream rather than natural winds.

Consider the hypothesis below and answer the question that follows.

Adding salt to water increases the water’s boiling point.

If you performed an experiment to test this hypothesis, which action would introduce confounding variables into your experiment?

• A. You use distilled water sourced from the same place.

• B. You add black salt to some specimens and pink salt to others.

• C. You add equal quantities of salt in all the water specimens.

• D. You use earthen clay pots to store and boil all the water specimens.

The graph shows the average annual water temperature in Holbrook Pond. Which part of the graph shows no change in the temperature over a period of time?

• A. part 1

• B. part 2

• C. part 3

• D. part 4

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Antoine manages a number of apartment buildings that use natural gas for heating, cooking, and laundry. The scatter plot shows the correlation between the outside air temperature and Antoine’s natural gas bill. Which type of correlation does the plot illustrate?

• A. strong negative

• B. strong positive

• C. weak negative

• D. weak positive

The pie chart tracks the percentage of renewable energy that’s being used in a particular community near the ocean. What are two advantages of using this type of graph for this particular data set?

• Readers can compare relative amounts of each type of renewable energy.

• Readers can see the number of kilojoules of renewable energy consumed.

• Readers get a quick visual on how each type of renewable energy contributes to the whole.

• Readers can determine which types of energy are renewable and which are not.

• Readers can understand which type of renewable energy is most energy efficient.