GED Science Practice Test: Life, Physical and Earth Science
- Life, Physical, Earth and Space Science
- 12 questions
- 15 minutes
These questions mix life science, physical science and Earth and space science, with two questions on experiments and data tables. Many GED Science questions give you the information you need in a passage or table, so read it carefully before relying on memory.
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.
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Question 1
In which cell structure does cellular respiration release most of the energy stored in glucose?
Correct answer: B
Mitochondria carry out most of cellular respiration, breaking down glucose to release usable energy for the cell. Chloroplasts do the reverse job: they capture light energy to build glucose during photosynthesis.
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Question 2
In pea plants, the allele for tall stems (T) is dominant over the allele for short stems (t). Two plants with the genotype Tt are crossed. What percentage of the offspring are expected to be short?
Correct answer: C
A Punnett square for Tt × Tt gives TT, Tt, Tt and tt. Only tt plants are short, so 1 out of 4, or 25%, are expected to be short. The 75% figure is the expected share of tall plants.
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Question 3
Consider this food chain: grass → grasshopper → frog → snake. Which organism is a secondary consumer?
Correct answer: D
Grass is the producer, the grasshopper eats the grass (primary consumer), and the frog eats the grasshopper, which makes it the secondary consumer. The snake is a tertiary consumer.
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Question 4
A species of beetle that lives on tree bark comes in a light form and a dark form. After pollution darkens the bark in a forest, dark beetles become more common there over many generations. Which explanation best fits the theory of natural selection?
Correct answer: A
In natural selection, individuals with a helpful inherited trait survive and reproduce more often, so the trait spreads over generations. Option B describes individuals changing during their lives, which does not change the traits passed to offspring.
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Question 5
A student wants to find out whether the length of time spent jumping rope affects heart rate. Volunteers jump rope for 1, 2, 3, 4 or 5 minutes on different days, and the student measures each volunteer's heart rate right after stopping. What is the dependent variable in this experiment?
Correct answer: D
The dependent variable is what the experimenter measures to see the effect, here the heart rate. The minutes of jumping rope are the independent variable, the factor the student changes on purpose.
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Question 6
Which of the following is an example of a chemical change?
Correct answer: B
Rust (iron oxide) is a new substance formed when iron reacts with oxygen and water, so rusting is a chemical change. Melting, dissolving and breaking change the form or mixture of a substance but do not create a new one.
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Question 7
A metal block has a mass of 54 grams and a volume of 20 cubic centimeters. What is the density of the block? (Density = mass ÷ volume)
Correct answer: B
Density = 54 g ÷ 20 cm3 = 2.7 g/cm3. The answer 0.37 comes from dividing volume by mass, the reverse of the formula.
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Question 8
What net force is needed to give a 1,200-kilogram car an acceleration of 2 meters per second squared? (Force = mass × acceleration)
Correct answer: C
Newton's second law gives F = ma = 1,200 kg × 2 m/s2 = 2,400 newtons. The answer 600 N comes from dividing the mass by the acceleration instead of multiplying.
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Question 9
A student holds a ball at the top of a ramp and then lets it go. As the ball rolls down the ramp, which energy change mainly takes place?
Correct answer: A
At the top of the ramp the ball has stored energy because of its height. As it rolls down, it loses height and speeds up, so potential energy becomes kinetic energy. Option B describes a ball rolling up a ramp.
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Question 10
What is the main cause of the seasons on Earth?
Correct answer: D
Because Earth's axis is tilted, each hemisphere receives more direct sunlight and longer days during part of the year. Distance is not the cause: Earth is actually closest to the Sun in early January, during winter in the Northern Hemisphere.
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Question 11
Where do most of the world's earthquakes and volcanoes occur?
Correct answer: C
Tectonic plates collide, pull apart and slide past each other at their boundaries, which builds up stress that is released as earthquakes and lets magma rise to the surface. That is why both cluster in belts such as the Pacific "Ring of Fire."
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Question 12
A student dropped identical sugar cubes into equal amounts of water at different temperatures and timed how long each cube took to dissolve completely.
Water temperature (°C) Time to dissolve (seconds) 20 120 40 75 60 42 80 20 Which conclusion is best supported by the data?
Correct answer: A
Each increase in temperature came with a shorter dissolving time, from 120 seconds at 20°C down to 20 seconds at 80°C. Option C does not match the numbers: going from 20°C to 40°C reduced the time from 120 to 75 seconds, not to 60.
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