Dwayne’s Study Zombies

So, did you get the GED practice question I gave you last time? One thing I know is, on the GED test, there’ll be charts and graphs to look at, and you gotta figure out what’s goin’ on with them to score high on your GED. Here’s the one I showed you last time:

And here was the GED practice question:
At high altitudes, where the air pressure is lower, water boils at:

1) 100 degrees Celcius

2) 0 degrees Celcius

3) a lower temperature than normal

4) a higher temperature than normal

5) none of the above

The trick is knowing what that graph means, right? That’s something that’s all over the place on the GED…charts and graphs. At least you don’t have to do only a bunch of reading! Pictures are always easier for me, anyway. So, this is a way to get a bunch of information from a picture instead of having to read a lot.

The question wants to know what temperature water boils. Well, how’s the chart tell you that? What happens when water boils? The chart doesn’t say anything at all about boiling.

Wait a minute, tho. It shows where water is liquid and where it’s a gas…steam. THAT’s what happens when water boils. It turns into steam and boils all away, right? So, we’re looking for the place where water changes from a liquid to a gas… that’s where it boils.

Now we’re getttin’ somewhere. Well, it boils at 100 degrees Celsius. There’s like a little line showing it, and you might even have heard that somewhere before. But you gotta look at the question real close (GED trick!) and make sure you get everything it’s sayin’. It says “WHERE THE AIR PRESSURE IS LOWER.” The little line on the graph goes to 1 atm… NORMAL pressure, from what the graph says. So at LOWER pressure (that’s below 1 atm, so closer to the bottom of the graph…water boils at LOWER temperatures (you can see by how the line on the graph goes.)

The answer is 3, a lower temperature than normal. And if you ever cook stuff in the mountains, you’ll prolly know that, too. Even some packages, like mac-n-cheese and stuff, might have different directions for cooking in the mountains. Kewl, right? And it could be on the GED, too! So keep up the studyin’!

For more information about the GED test and GED test preparation, visit The GED Academy.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 8th, 2008 at 11:31 am and is filed under GED Practice Question, Physics.
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