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A car is travelling at 10 m/s - Edexcel - GCSE Physics - Question 5 - 2021 - Paper 1
Question 5
A car is travelling at 10 m/s. The driver sees a danger and stops the car. (i) The stopping distance for the car would be smaller if the car A had more passengers... show full transcript
Worked Solution & Example Answer:A car is travelling at 10 m/s - Edexcel - GCSE Physics - Question 5 - 2021 - Paper 1
Step 1
The stopping distance for the car would be smaller if the car
Answer
The correct answer is D: was travelling more slowly.
When a vehicle is travelling at a lower speed, the stopping distance decreases due to lesser kinetic energy. The stopping distance is influenced by both speed and the ability of the brakes to bring the vehicle to a halt.
Step 2
Use the graph to find the driver’s reaction time.
Answer
To find the driver’s reaction time, we need to examine the speed-time graph. From the graph, the car starts to decelerate from its maximum speed of 10 m/s to 0 m/s.
The graph shows a straight line declining, indicating uniform deceleration. The time taken to come to a complete stop from 10 m/s is approximately 2.0 seconds.
The reaction time can be found by determining the duration before the deceleration begins. This is often represented as the time the speed remains constant before decreasing. If, for example, the speed remains stable for the first 0.5 seconds, then the reaction time is roughly 0.5 seconds.