ASPECt
Energy: Forms, Transformation, Transfer, and Conservation
Item RG178001: When a bird and a piece of food are at the same height above the ground, the bird has more gravitational potential energy because the it has more mass than the food.
A person throws a piece of food up into the air for a bird to eat. The bird has more mass than the food.
When the bird and the food are the same distance from the ground, does the bird or the food have more gravitational potential energy and why?
- The food has more gravitational potential energy than the bird because the person gave the food gravitational potential energy by throwing it.
- The food has more gravitational potential energy than the bird because the bird is traveling sideways and the food is traveling up, and gravitational potential energy depends on the direction an object is traveling.
- The bird has more gravitational potential energy than the food because gravitational potential energy depends on mass, and the bird has more mass than the food.
- The bird and the food have the same gravitational potential energy because gravitational potential energy depends only on the distance above the ground, and the bird and the food are the same distance above the ground.
- Distribution of Responses
- Scale Score for Item Difficulty
(200[Easy]-800[Difficult]) - 507
- Students Responding Correctly
| Group | Correct | Total | Percent |
|---|---|---|---|
| Overall | 3001 | 7932 | 38% |
| Grades | |||
| 4–5 | 164 | 479 | 34% |
| 6–8 | 1576 | 4251 | 37% |
| 9–12 | 1261 | 3202 | 39% |
| Gender | |||
| Male | 1467 | 3785 | 39% |
| Female | 1475 | 3979 | 37% |
| Primary Language | |||
| English | 2645 | 6917 | 38% |
| Other | 284 | 807 | 35% |