Earth Science Practice Test: The Rock Cycle
- The Rock Cycle
- 10 questions
- 15 minutes
This test follows rocks as they change from one type into another over long periods of time. Tip: for each step, ask which process is acting: heat and pressure, melting and cooling, or weathering, erosion and cementation.
Tap an option to mark your answer. You can change your mind, or tap the same option again to leave the question blank. The correct answers and explanations appear when you finish the test.Tap an option to answer; tap it again to leave the question blank.
Your result
- 0 correct
- 0 wrong
- 0 blank
-
Question 1
Layers of sand settle at the bottom of a sea. Over millions of years, more layers pile on top and minerals in the water glue the grains together. What is this process called?
Correct answer: C
Burial squeezes the grains together (compaction) and dissolved minerals bind them (cementation). Together these steps, called lithification, turn sediment into sedimentary rock.
-
Question 2
What must happen for a sedimentary rock to become an igneous rock?
Correct answer: A
Igneous rocks form only from cooled magma or lava, so the rock has to melt completely first. Squeezing and heating without melting produce a metamorphic rock instead.
-
Question 3
Deep in a mountain range, a limestone layer is heated to several hundred degrees Celsius and squeezed, but it never melts. What does the limestone become?
Correct answer: D
Heat and pressure that change a rock without melting it cause metamorphism; limestone becomes marble. If it had melted and cooled, it would be igneous.
-
Question 4
A granite cliff slowly crumbles into sand grains that a river carries to the coast. Which processes are acting on the granite?
Correct answer: B
Weathering breaks the granite into grains, and erosion moves them away. Compaction and cementation would only happen later, after the sand is buried.
-
Question 5
Which energy source drives weathering and erosion at Earth's surface?
Correct answer: B
Sunlight powers the water cycle and winds, which bring rain, ice and moving water that wear rock down. Earth's internal heat drives the other part of the cycle: melting, metamorphism and uplift.
-
Question 6
Sandstone made mostly of quartz grains is buried deeply. The grains recrystallize and fuse into a very hard rock. Which rock forms?
Correct answer: D
Metamorphism of quartz sandstone produces quartzite, in which the grains are fused so tightly that the rock breaks through them. Marble comes from limestone and slate from shale.
-
Question 7
A student claims that a metamorphic rock can never become a sedimentary rock. Which statement correctly answers this claim?
Correct answer: C
The rock cycle has no fixed order: any rock exposed at the surface can be broken into sediment and turned into sedimentary rock. Melting would lead to an igneous rock, not a sedimentary one.
-
Question 8
Lava flows out of a volcano onto the ground and cools within days into a dark rock with crystals too small to see. Which rock is this most likely to be?
Correct answer: A
Basalt is a dark, extrusive igneous rock with tiny crystals because the lava cooled quickly at the surface. Granite is also igneous but cools slowly underground and has large crystals.
-
Question 9
At a subduction zone, an oceanic plate sinks into the mantle. Water released from the plate lowers the melting point of the rock above it. Which material does this step of the rock cycle produce?
Correct answer: D
The added water makes mantle rock partly melt, forming magma that rises to feed volcanoes. This is how subduction returns material to the igneous part of the rock cycle.
-
Question 10
Why are fossils found mostly in sedimentary rocks?
Correct answer: A
Plants and animals are buried by mud and sand near the surface, where conditions are gentle enough to preserve them. Melting destroys remains, and strong metamorphism usually deforms or erases them.
Questions you leave blank are not counted as wrong.
More Science tests
ScienceEarth Science Practice Test: Plate TectonicsPlate Tectonics10 questions15 min ScienceEarth Science Practice Test: Minerals and RocksMinerals and Rocks10 questions15 minScienceEarth Science Practice Test: Earthquakes and VolcanoesEarthquakes and Volcanoes10 questions15 minScienceEarth Science Practice Test: Weathering and ErosionWeathering and Erosion10 questions15 minScienceEarth Science Practice Test: The Water CycleThe Water Cycle10 questions15 minScienceEarth Science Practice Test: Weather and Air MassesWeather and Air Masses10 questions15 minScienceEarth Science Practice Test: ClimateClimate10 questions15 min