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Item RG111002: Either increasing the charge of the plates in a capacitor or increasing the thickness of the insulating layer would change the amount of electrostatic potential energy.

A scientist is designing a new capacitor. A capacitor is a device that is used to store an electrostatic charge. It is composed of two large conductive plates separated by a nonconductive insulating layer. He can change the charge on the plates or the thickness of the insulating layer.

Which of the following would change the amount of electrostatic potential energy stored in the capacitor?

  1. Either increasing the charge of the plates or increasing the thickness of the insulating layer would change the amount of electrostatic potential energy.
  2. Increasing the charge of the plates would change the amount of electrostatic potential energy, but increasing the thickness of the insulating layer would not.
  3. Increasing the thickness of the insulating layer would change the amount of electrostatic potential energy, but increasing the charge of the plates would not.
  4. Neither increasing the thickness of the insulating layer nor increasing the charge of the plates would change the amount of electrostatic potential energy.
Distribution of Responses
Chart showing distrubtion of responses for Item EG111002
Scale Score for Item Difficulty
(200[Easy]-800[Difficult])
518
Students Responding Correctly
Group Correct Total Percent
Overall 1244 3831 33%
Grades
  4–5N/AN/AN/A
  6–8 600 2001 30%
  9–12 644 1830 35%
Gender
  Male600181333%
  Female605192231%
Primary Language
  English1124340133%
  Other8832927%

View data table