GED Science Practice Test 2024 (Question Answers) PDF

In an acid base reaction, an acid reacts with a base to produce water and a salt. The pH scale can be used to describe the acidity of a liquid. Look at the diagram below.

Which two liquids could undergo an acid base reaction?

According to Newton’s laws of motion, an object set in motion remains in motion unless a force acts on it. If you suspend an object from a string and make it swing, the object will swing for a while, then slow down and stop. Why does the suspended object stop swinging?

In an exothermic process, heat is released by the process to the surroundings. An example of an exothermic process is burning wood. An endothermic process requires the input of heat from the surroundings. An example of an endothermic process is boiling water. Which of the following is an endothermic process?

Ice floats on water because

Which of the following is NOT true about gravity?

Change of phase is a process whereby matter changes form (solid, liquid, gas). Which one of the following constitutes a phase change?

Two negatively charged spheres

Which statement about energy and/or matter is incorrect?

The boiling point in hydrocarbons (molecules containing H and C) increases with increasing molecular weight due to larger intermolecular forces. Which of these hydrocarbons would you expect to have the highest boiling point?

People wear woolen gloves in the winter because gloves

Different colors of light correspond to different wavelengths. Wavelengths are often quoted in nanometers (nm). The wavelengths of the visible part of the spectrum are shown in the diagram below.

According to the diagram, blue-green light would most likely have a wavelength of

What always stays the same when a chemical reaction takes place?

Which of the following is NOT true about sunlight?

In order to protect themselves from being eaten, animals resort to camouflage and chemical defense. Animals camouflage by mimicking the appearance of their environment. Animals that have chemical defenses contain chemicals noxious to predators. Which of these is NOT an example of camouflage or chemical defense?

Osmosis is the movement of water across a selectively permeable membrane in order to equalize the concentration (the amount of protein per milliliter of water) on two sides of the membrane. Consider the diagram below. The container is divided into two compartments, A and B, by a selectively permeable membrane. Each circle represents 100 protein molecules that can’t pass through the membrane. The amount of water on two sides of the membrane is initially equal. What will happen as a result of osmosis?

Which of the following statements about human genetics is true?

Identical twins have exactly the same genes. Identical twins result when

In peas, the gene for green color is dominant over the gene for yellow color. We will specify the gene for yellow peas as y, and the gene for green peas as Y. Each pea has two genes for color (one from each parent) and donates only one gene for color to its offspring. Yellow peas have the genotype yy. Any other genotype leads to green peas. Consider the following Punnett square:

The offspring of these two parents

Which of the following is NOT true?

In humans, a pair of chromosomes (one from each parent) determines the sex of the baby. Females have two X chromosomes, while males have an X and a Y chromosome. The baby always gets an X chromosome from the mother, so in humans, the father determines the sex of the baby by supplying it with either an X chromosome to make it female, or a Y chromosome to make it male. In birds, like in humans, a pair of chromosomes determines the sex. Birds with two W chromosomes are male. Birds with a W chromosome and a Z chromosome are female. Which statement is true about birds?

A species may live in association with another species. Such an arrangement is called symbiosis. Symbiosis in which both species benefit is called mutualism. If the symbiosis is beneficial to one species and neither beneficial nor harmful to the other, it is called commensalism. If one species benefits at the expense of the other, the relationship is called parasitism. A tick that attaches to the skin of a human or animal and feeds on its blood is an example of

[Reading for Meaning in Science] Questions 22 through 24 are based on the following passage.

An island in the Adriatic Sea was overpopulated with snakes. Sailors who came to the island brought and let loose mongoose, animals that feed on snakes. The population of snakes started decreasing since the mongooses were eating them. The mongoose population started increasing since there was ample food around. The mongooses were not native to the island and there was no predator on the island to keep the mongoose population in check. At some point, there were hardly any snakes left on the island, and people started populating it. The mongoose, facing a shortage of snakes, started eating chickens that people kept for their eggs and meat. However, people caught on and protected the chickens from getting eaten. The mongoose population decreased. Some remain on the island, but their number is now at equilibrium, kept in check by the availability of food.

The passage illustrates

[Reading for Meaning in Science] Questions 22 through 24 are based on the following passage.

An island in the Adriatic Sea was overpopulated with snakes. Sailors who came to the island brought and let loose mongoose, animals that feed on snakes. The population of snakes started decreasing since the mongooses were eating them. The mongoose population started increasing since there was ample food around. The mongooses were not native to the island and there was no predator on the island to keep the mongoose population in check. At some point, there were hardly any snakes left on the island, and people started populating it. The mongoose, facing a shortage of snakes, started eating chickens that people kept for their eggs and meat. However, people caught on and protected the chickens from getting eaten. The mongoose population decreased. Some remain on the island, but their number is now at equilibrium, kept in check by the availability of food.

There were hardly any snakes left on the island because

[Reading for Meaning in Science] Questions 22 through 24 are based on the following passage.

An island in the Adriatic Sea was overpopulated with snakes. Sailors who came to the island brought and let loose mongoose, animals that feed on snakes. The population of snakes started decreasing since the mongooses were eating them. The mongoose population started increasing since there was ample food around. The mongooses were not native to the island and there was no predator on the island to keep the mongoose population in check. At some point, there were hardly any snakes left on the island, and people started populating it. The mongoose, facing a shortage of snakes, started eating chickens that people kept for their eggs and meat. However, people caught on and protected the chickens from getting eaten. The mongoose population decreased. Some remain on the island, but their number is now at equilibrium, kept in check by the availability of food.

Which statement best describes the change in the population of mongooses on the island?

There are four blood types in humans: A, B, AB, and O. An individual with blood type A has antibodies for B, so he or she can’t receive type B blood. Similarly, a person with blood type B has antibodies for type A and can’t receive type A blood. A person with AB blood type has no antibodies and can receive blood from anyone. A person with type O blood has both A and B antibodies and can receive blood only from someone else with type O blood. Based on this information, someone with type B blood can donate to

Two main chemicals are responsible for the communication of the brain with the organs you have no conscious control over (heart, digestive system, endocrine system). The chemical norepinephrine helps your body get ready for a fightor-flight action by stirring up energy stores. In contrast, the chemical acetylcholine helps conserve energy by slowing the heart and increasing intestinal absorption. Which of the following situations is least likely to lead to increased levels of norepinephrine?

Most bacteria cannot grow in high concentrations of salt. As a result,

In the early 19th century, almost all peppered moths collected by biologists in the U.K. were pale and mottled. Only rarely was a collector able to find a dark-peppered moth. After the Industrial Revolution, when furnaces filled the air with dark soot, the light-peppered moth became rare and the dark-peppered moth was most common in industrial cities. A reasonable explanation for this change is that the dark moth was less likely to be seen and eaten by birds against the dark background. This explanation illustrates the principle of

All of the following are mammals EXCEPT

All of the following are primates EXCEPT

A woman is most likely to get pregnant if she has unprotected sex a few days before and on the day of ovulation, when the egg is released from the ovaries. The release of the egg is hormonally stimulated, meaning that a hormone in the woman’s body triggers ovulation. On average, women ovulate around the 14th day of their menstrual cycle. The following is a graph showing the levels of three hormones throughout the menstrual cycle of an average woman.

Based on the graph, which hormone is most directly responsible for triggering ovulation?

As the pressure of a gas increases at a constant temperature, the volume of the gas decreases.

If you were a diver and you wanted to take an oxygen tank with you, what would you do?

The amount of solute that can be dissolved in a solvent at a given temperature is called solubility. For most substances, solubility increases with temperature. Rock candy can be made from sugar solutions that have an excess of sugar dissolved. The amount of sugar per 100 grams of water at a given temperature has to be higher than the amount that is normally soluble in order to make rock candy. Based on the solubility of sugar in water as a function of temperature, plotted in the graph, how much sugar would you need to dissolve in 100 grams of water to make rock candy at 40° C?

Questions 34 and 35 are based on the following passage.

In 1628, English physician William Harvey established that the blood circulates throughout the body. He recognized that the heart acts as a pump and does not work by using up blood as earlier anatomists thought. To carefully observe the beating of the heart and the direction of blood flow, Harvey needed to see the works of the blood in slow motion. Since there was no way for him to observe a human heart in slow motion, he studied the hearts of toads and snakes, rather than the rapidly beating hearts of “warm-blooded” mammals and birds. By keeping these animals cool, he could slow their hearts down. The main argument for his conclusion that the blood circulates stemmed from his measurement of the amount of blood pumped with each heartbeat. He calculated that the amount of blood pumped each hour by far exceeds the total amount of blood in the body and proved that the same blood passes through the heart over and over again.

What misconception did scientists harbor before Harvey’s study?

Questions 34 and 35 are based on the following passage.

In 1628, English physician William Harvey established that the blood circulates throughout the body. He recognized that the heart acts as a pump and does not work by using up blood as earlier anatomists thought. To carefully observe the beating of the heart and the direction of blood flow, Harvey needed to see the works of the blood in slow motion. Since there was no way for him to observe a human heart in slow motion, he studied the hearts of toads and snakes, rather than the rapidly beating hearts of “warm-blooded” mammals and birds. By keeping these animals cool, he could slow their hearts down. The main argument for his conclusion that the blood circulates stemmed from his measurement of the amount of blood pumped with each heartbeat. He calculated that the amount of blood pumped each hour by far exceeds the total amount of blood in the body and proved that the same blood passes through the heart over and over again.

Which of the following did Harvey do?

I. Observe the heartbeat and blood flow in snakes and frogs.
II. Determine that the heart acts as a pump.
III. Count the number of blood cells that pass through the heart every hour.
IV. Show that the blood circulates.