Physics catch-up practice test for Year 2 of the liceo scientifico.
Are you in Year 2 and need to make up physics? This is the second-year catch-up exam: 20 questions drawn at random from a bank of 50, on the Year 2 programme, so every attempt is a different test. Scoring works like the TOLC admission tests (+1 correct, −0.25 wrong, 0 blank), and at the end you receive by email the correct answer to every question with your weak points by topic — with an account you see them straight away on this page (the step-by-step solution unlocks with your first lesson).
The catch-up exam is the test an Italian high-school student sits in late August or September to make up a subject failed during the school year; the liceo scientifico is the science-oriented high school.
Test in ItalianThe questions of this simulator are in Italian, as in the real exam.
Topics covered by the test
- Fluid statics: Pascal, Stevin, Archimedes
- Thermology: scales, expansion, specific heat, latent heat
- 1D kinematics: uniform and uniformly accelerated motion, graphs, free fall
- The laws of dynamics and their applications
Two worked examples from the test
Un blocco A spinge un blocco B con una forza di . In base al terzo principio della dinamica, quale forza esercita B su A?
Solution
Il terzo principio della dinamica (principio di azione e reazione) afferma che, quando un corpo esercita una forza su un secondo corpo, quest'ultimo esercita sul primo una forza uguale in modulo ma di verso opposto.
Passo 1 — Individuo la forza di azione. A esercita su B una forza di .
Passo 2 — Applico il principio. La forza di reazione ha lo stesso modulo, , ma verso opposto.
Risposta corretta: in verso opposto. Attenzione: azione e reazione agiscono su corpi diversi (una su B, l'altra su A) e quindi non si annullano mai a vicenda, anche se hanno lo stesso modulo.
Calcola la pressione che una colonna d'acqua alta esercita sul fondo, senza contare la pressione atmosferica (densità dell'acqua , ).
Solution
La legge di Stevino dà la pressione esercitata da una colonna di fluido in funzione della densità del fluido, dell'accelerazione di gravità e dell'altezza della colonna.
Passo 1 — Scrivo la legge di Stevino.
Passo 2 — Sostituisco i dati.
Passo 3 — Calcolo.
Risposta corretta: . Se avevi scelto , hai dimenticato di moltiplicare per l'altezza , fermandoti al prodotto : ricorda che la legge di Stevino ha tre fattori, non due.
In the online practice test you will find 18 more questions like these; the correct answer to every question arrives by email.
Prefer paper? Download the test as a PDF (20 questions, 5 pages · 92 KB, ready to print). You receive the solutions by email after taking it online.
Download the PDFWhat the Year 2 catch-up exam really asks
The physics catch-up exam for Year 2 does not fish at random across the whole programme: it is always the same four or five patterns, at textbook difficulty. These are the ones that come back almost every time.
- Uniformly accelerated motion, often read from a graph or as a falling body
- A body on an inclined plane with friction, solved with the second law
- A body immersed in a liquid: Stevin’s law and Archimedes’ principle
- A calorimeter: the equilibrium temperature of two masses of water, or ice melting
The mistakes that cost you the grade
You do not fail the September exam because of the hard topics: you fail it because of three or four mechanical mistakes that repeat in every exercise. On this programme they are these.
- Applying Archimedes with the volume of the body instead of the submerged volume, when the body floats
- Reading a rising distance-time graph as “the speed is increasing”: it is the position that rises, the speed is the slope of the graph
- In the calorimeter, putting latent heat inside Q = mcΔT: during a change of state the temperature does not change and the heat is written separately as Q = mL
- Getting the signs wrong in the second law: first you choose a positive direction for forces and accelerations, then you never change it
What order to revise in
Kinematics before dynamics, always: if you cannot read a distance-time graph, the second law will not save you. Then the three laws and free-body diagrams, which are the real content of the year. Fluid statics and thermology after that: they are closed blocks, a few formulas each (Stevin and Archimedes; Q = mcΔT and latent heat), and can be recovered in an evening if the units are right.
Is the score not enough?
In 2–3 weeks of targeted revision you can make up the subject: let us look at your results together — the diagnostic is free.