6 exam-style questions with full mark schemes and model answers. Write your own answer and the AI examiner marks it against the mark scheme.
Learn this properly: Transverse and Longitudinal WavesA loudspeaker produces a sound wave that travels through the air of a room, and a ripple tank produces a water wave that travels across the surface of the water.
Compare a sound wave travelling through air with a water wave on the surface of a ripple tank. In your answer you should identify each as transverse or longitudinal, describe how the particles of the medium move relative to the direction the wave travels, and explain what the wave transfers (and what it does not transfer). (6 marks)
A wave machine sends water waves across a tank. The waves have a wavelength of 0.15 m and a frequency of 4.0 Hz.
(a) Calculate the speed of the water waves. Use v=fλ. Show your working and give the unit. (2 marks)
(b) Calculate the period of the waves. Use T=f1. Show your working and give the unit. (2 marks)
A survey ship uses ultrasound to measure the depth of the sea below it. It sends a short pulse of ultrasound straight down towards the seabed and detects the returning echo 0.18 s after the pulse was sent. The speed of sound in seawater is 1500 m/s.
(a) Calculate the depth of the sea below the ship. Show your working and give the unit. (2 marks)
(b) Explain why you had to halve a distance in your calculation. (1 mark)
A ray of light travels through air and strikes the flat surface of a glass block at an angle to the surface. The light passes into the glass and continues to the other side.
(a) As the ray passes from air into the glass, state what happens to its speed, and state whether it bends towards or away from the normal. (2 marks)
(b) Explain why the ray changes direction as it enters the glass. (1 mark)
The electromagnetic spectrum is a continuous family of transverse waves. The list below shows five regions, but they are not in order:
visible light, microwaves, gamma rays, infrared, ultraviolet
(a) Write these five regions in order of increasing frequency (lowest frequency first). (1 mark)
(b) State one use of microwaves and one danger of ultraviolet radiation to the human body. (1 mark)
On a diagram of a transverse wave, the distance from one crest to the very next crest is marked.
State the name of the wave feature that this distance represents. (1 mark)