Name: 

The distance between Earth and the Moon was determined by measuring the time it took for light waves from Earth to travel to the Moon and back. Why was it not possible to use sound waves for this experiment? (MCAS 2007)

A sound wave can be transmitted through all of the following except ____. (MCAS 2008)

People perceive sound differently in air than they do under water. Which of the following correctly compares the motion of sound waves in air and in water? (MCAS 2008)

To locate objects in their environments, bats in flight and porpoises under water both use ultrasound waves with frequencies that are beyond human hearing. These animals produce an ultrasonic wave and then detect echoes from nearby objects. If a porpoise and a bat both produce ultrasonic waves when they are 16 m from an object, which animal would hear its echo first and why? (MCAS 2009)

Which of the following observations is a result of the Doppler effect? (MCAS 2009)

The source of a sound is moving away from an observer who is standing still. How do the sound waves received by the observer compare with those emitted by the source? (MCAS 2010)

When a student listens to music, sound waves propagate from the speaker to her ear. Which of the following is a physical description of this process? (MCAS 2010)

A star suddenly explodes. Which of the following types of waves reach Earth’s surface? (MCAS 2010)

A loud buzzer is swinging like a pendulum. An observer is near one end of the buzzer’s path, as shown below.

Which of the following describes and explains what the observer hears as the buzzer moves away from him? (MCAS 2011)

A car with its horn sounding approaches a group of students. Assume the car’s horn produces sound waves with a constant frequency. Which of the following statements best explains why the students hear a higher pitch as the car approaches than when it is stopped? (MCAS 2011)

A person creates a longitudinal wave by shouting into a tube in the direction indicated by the arrow on the diagram below. The dot inside the tube represents an air particle in the tube before the wave reaches it.

Which of the following diagrams best represents the motion of the air particle when the wave travels through the tube? (MCAS 2011)

The picture below shows a sound speaker in a cabinet with its front panel removed.

When music plays through the speaker, the speaker rapidly moves back and forth in the cabinet. Which of the following conclusions is best supported by this observation? (MCAS 2012)

The siren of a fire truck emits a certain pitch, which is heard by a nearby observer. In which of the following situations would the observer perceive the lowest frequency of sound? (MCAS 2012)

Student X and student Y are receiving sound waves from a stationary source. The sound waves have a frequency of 10 kHz. Student X is stationary and student Y is traveling toward the source of the sound waves. Which of the following statements describes what will happen as student Y moves? (MCAS 2012)

In which of the following media do sound waves most likely travel the fastest? (MCAS 2012)

A person is driving north in a car at a constant speed. A police officer is driving south toward him at a constant speed. The police officer uses a radar unit to measure the speed of the person’s car. The radar unit sends out waves of a certain frequency toward the person’s car. The waves reflect off the person’s car and travel back to the radar unit in the police car. What happens to the frequency of the waves detected by the radar unit? (MCAS 2013)

Which of the following observed properties of a wave is changed by the Doppler effect? (MCAS 2013)

Sound travels through air, steel, and water at different speeds. Which list is ordered from the substance that sound will travel through the slowest to the substance that sound will travel through the fastest? (MCAS 2013)

A loud alarm attached to a metal fence begins to ring. Student X has her ear against a pole of the fence while student Y stands away from the fence, as shown below. Both students are the same distance from the alarm.

Which of the following statements explains what happens in this situation? (MCAS 2014)

A student conducted two investigations using a toy car and microphones, as shown below.

The toy car contained a buzzer. The microphones were used to record the frequency of sound. In investigation 1, the buzzer frequency was measured while the toy car was at rest. In investigation 2, the toy car was in motion and the observed frequency was measured in front of and behind the car. Which of the following graphs represents the frequency recorded by each microphone? (MCAS 2014)

Rita and John stand at opposite ends of a long section of steel track from an abandoned railroad line. Rita places a penny on her end of the track. John then strikes his end of the track with a rock. (MCAS 2009)

A large anchor is being lifted into a boat with metal sides. As the anchor leaves the water it hits the side of the boat, making loud sounds and making waves on the surface of the water. (MCAS 2011)