Science Assessment ~ Topics ~ Energy: Forms, Transformation, Transfer, and Conservation ~ Item NG081004 ~ Student Performance

In the morning, a student puts a warm can of soda in a cooler filled with ice.

He closes the cooler. A few hours later, the can of soda is colder. What happened to the total amount of energy in the cooler containing the can of soda and the ice? (Assume that no energy is transferred into or out of the cooler after it is closed.)

The total amount of energy increased because the energy that the can of soda transferred to the ice is greater than the energy that the ice lost.
The total amount of energy decreased because the can of soda has less energy than it started with, and the amount of energy the ice has did not change.
The total amount of energy stayed the same because the amount of energy that the can of soda transferred to the ice is equal to the amount of energy that the ice gained.
The total amount of energy stayed the same because being warmer or colder does not affect the amount of energy objects have.

Distribution of responses
Answer Choice	Overall	Grades			Gender		Primary Language
	n = 1128	4–5 n = 0	6–8 n = 667	9–12 n = 461	Male n = 555	Female n = 557	English n = 990	Other n = 114
A.	27%	N/A	29%	25%	27%	27%	26%	34%
B.	25%	N/A	28%	20%	26%	24%	25%	25%
C.	32%	N/A	26%	41%	32%	33%	33%	22%
D.	16%	N/A	17%	14%	14%	17%	15%	19%

Science Assessment

Item NG081004: The total energy inside a closed cooler filled with ice and a can of soda stays the same even though the can of soda gets colder, because the amount of energy that the can of soda lost is equal to the amount of energy that the ice gained.