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Scientific Methods Exercises

1. Patsy Sherman, a chemist at 3M, was working on developing a rubber

substance that would not deteriorate when exposed to jet aircraft
fuels. She mistakenly splashed some on her shoe and noticed several
weeks later that the areas on her shoe that had the substance on them
looked nearly new, while areas without the substance were dirty and
stained. She assumed the substance must have been responsible for
preserving the shoe.
To confirm her suspicions, Patsy needed to conduct
A. Research
B. experiments
C. observation
D. analysis

2. Males of Chorthippus biguttulus, a species of grasshopper, chirp

during mating season to attract females of the species. Scientists
hypothesized that male grasshoppers whose habitats are near
roadways chirp at higher frequencies than male grasshoppers whose
habitats are away from the noise produced by cars. The scientists
designed an investigation to test this hypothesis.
Complete the experimental producer that allowed the scientists
to test the hypothesis. Match the experimental procedures with steps.
Step 1 is already given.
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3. Directions: Following the scientific method, a researcher conducted

an experiment using houseplants. Match each action the scientist
took to the step in the scientific method below.

4. Janice is testing two different fertilizers to see which works better.

She uses Fertilizer A on the vegetable garden in her backyard and
Fertilizer B on her flower garden in the front of her house. The plants
in the vegetable garden grow three times faster and larger than the
plants in her flower garden. She concludes that Fertilizer A is the
better product.
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What is wrong with the design of Janice’s experiment?

A. It has no well-defined variables.
B. She did not propose a hypothesis.
C. It has no well-defined controls.
D. Janice forgot to do her research.

Number 5 to 8 are based on the following passage.

An office manager noticed that each time she touched the metal filing
cabinet next to her desk, she experienced an electrostatic shock (commonly
known as “static”). Her assistant, however, only rarely experienced such
shocks when touching the cabinet. The office manager wondered why this
might be. The office manager developed a hypothesis: perhaps differences
in clothing could explain why she was experiencing more shocks than her
assistant. The office manager liked to wear nylon clothing, and her assistant
usually wore cotton clothing.
To test her hypothesis, the office manager convinced her assistant to
wear nylon clothing to work every day for a week, while she herself wore
cotton clothing. The next week, the switched: the office manager wore
nylon clothing, and the assistant wore cotton. To control for the possibility
that the differences in shocks were due to differences in their footwear, they
wore identical shoes each day.
During the experiment, both the office manager and her assistant
recorded the number of times they touched the metal filing cabinet each
day, and they also recorded the number of times they experienced
electrostatic shocks when doing so.
At the end of the first week, they found that the assistant had
experienced 73 electrostatic shocks, while the office manager experienced
68 shocks, and her assistant
The office manager concluded that these results supported her
hypothesis, and as a result she decided to switch to wearing mostly cotton
clothing.

5. Scientific investigations begin with a question. Which of the following

is the question that formed the basis for the office manager’s
experiment?
A. Is it better to wear cotton clothing or nylon clothing?
B. Why does touching the metal filing cabinet produce more
electrostatic shocks than touching other office furniture?
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C. Why, when I touch the metal filing cabinet, do I experience more

electrostatic shocks than my assistant does when she touches it?
D. Could my shoes be causing me to experience more electrostatic
shocks than my assistant experiences?

6. Which of the following best summarizes how the office manager

conducted her experiment?
A. The office manger suspected that her nylon clothing was causing
her to experience electrostatic shocks.
B. The office manager switched to cotton clothing after seeing that
her hypothesis was supported by her data.
C. The office manager wore shoes of a different material than those of
her assistant.
D. The office manager wore one type of clothing, while her assistant
wore another type of clothing, and they recorded the number of
shocks they experienced.

7. Why did the office manager and her assistant wear the same type of
shoes while conducting the experiment?
A. They wanted to test the effect of their clothing on the number of
shocks they experienced, and wearing different types of shoes
might have confused their results.
B. They wanted to test whether the office manager’s shoes were
causing the high number of electrostatic shocks she was
experiencing.
C. They believed that wearing cotton might cause the wearer to
experience more electrostatic shocks.
D. They wanted to protect themselves from the effects of electrostatic
shock.

8. Imagine that the results of the office manager’s experiment had

demonstrated that her clothing was not in fact responsible for the
large number of electrostatic shocks she was experiencing. After
reviewing those findings, the office manager then wondered if her
footwear might be responsible, and she decided to conduct a new
experiment to test this idea. Before she conducted that experiment,
the idea that her shoes might be responsible would be which of the
following?
A. A new conclusion based on findings
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B. A general principle from the study of physics

C. A new hypothesis
D. An experiment design

9. Isaac Newton (1642–1727) was a physicist, mathematician,

astronomer, philosopher, chemist, and theologian. One of the most
important contributions Newton made to science is known as
Newton’s three laws of motion. The first law states that every object
in motion stays in motion. The second law states that the force of an
object equals its mass times its acceleration. The third law states that
for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.
Which of the following would be the best title for this
information?
A. “The History of Science”
B. “Physics Explained”
C. “Isaac Newton’s Three Laws of Motion”
D. “The Life and Times of Isaac Newton”

10. In 1911, British scientist Ernest Rutherford performed

experiments that increased our knowledge of atomic structure. He
bombarded an extremely thin sheet of gold foil with helium nuclei.
(Helium nuclei, also called alpha particles, consist of two protons and
two neutrons.) he found that most of the helium nuclei passed right
through the foil. Only a few were deflected back toward the source.
On the basis of this experiment, Rutherford concluded that an atom
has a dense nucleus with electrons orbiting it, but consists mostly of
empty space.
Which of the following is evidence that atoms consist mostly of
empty space?
A. Helium nuclei consist of two protons and two neutrons.
B. Most of the alpha particles passed right through the gold foil.
C. A few alpha particles were deflected off the gold foil and bounced
back toward the source.
D. Electrons orbit a dense nucleus consisting of protons and
neutrons.
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11. A student did an experiment to see how far a ball would roll on
different surfaces. She made five different ramps, each with a -
different surface: a plain pine board, a painted board, a board covered
with sandpaper, a board covered with artificial turf, and a board
covered with shag carpet. She set up his experiment on a smooth,
level floor. To make the ramps, she raised one end of each board with
a book. She collected four copies of the science textbook her class was
using and set up four of the ramps with these books. She couldn’t find
a fifth copy of the book, so she used a thinner science study guide to
set up the fifth ramp. She rolled a tennis ball down each ramp and
measured how far the ball traveled each time. Then she compiled his
data and drew conclusions.
Why was the student’s experiment flawed?
A. The student should have used a ball with a smooth surface rather
than a tennis ball.
B. The student should have used books of the same height for all of
the ramps.
C. The student should not have used sandpaper as one of the
surfaces.
D. For a control, the student should have rolled the ball across a piece
of wood that was level.

12.For five years, researchers at the University of Wisconsin Medical

School ran an experiment in which they evaluated the hearing of
3,753 people between the ages of 48 and 92. Of the group, 46 percent
were nonsmokers, 30.3 percent were former smokers, and 14.7
percent still smoked. The scientists found that smokers were nearly
1.7 times as likely as nonsmokers to suffer hearing loss. The study
suggests that age-related hearing loss might be preventable.
Which of the following statements is most likely to have been
the researchers’ hypothesis?
A. Smoking has been shown to harm health in many different ways.
B. People can reduce their chances of developing age-related hearing
loss by not smoking.
C. The University of Wisconsin study group consisted of 3,753 people
between the ages of 48 and 92.
D. Smokers were nearly 1.7 times as likely as nonsmokers to suffer
hearing loss.
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13. A scientist is trying to determine the effects of certain creams on skin

rashes. He has a sample of four different individuals. Three
individuals each take one of three different creams (Cream A, B, and
C) and one does nothing. After three days, Cream A has reduced the
rash by 50%, Cream B has reduced the rash by 70%, Cream C has
reduced the rash by 30%, and the individual who did nothing had the
rash reduced by 15%.
The individual who does not apply skin cream during this
experiment would be what?
A. the control
B. none of these
C. the independent variable
D. the dependent variable

14.A chemistry student is designing an investigation to determine

whether each of three common chemical reactions is endothermic or
exothermic. The student plans to record temperatures before, during,
and after each reaction.
What is the most appropriate next step in the student’s
investigation?
A. compare the final temperatures of three reactions
B. compare the average temperatures of the three reactions
C. compare the initial and final temperatures for each individual
reaction
D. compare the temperature during the reaction to the initial
temperature

15. A snowboard manufacturer wants to determine which of three

snowboards is the optimum weight for maximizing speed down a
slope. The manufacturer plans to give one board to each of three
snowboarders. The snowboarders will each complete five downhill
trials on the same slope. Their average speeds will then be recorded
and compared.
Which of the following changes to the design would best reduce
a possible source of error in the investigation?
A. compare the snowboarders’ slowest speeds
B. perform each of the five trials on a different slope
C. have the same snowboarder test all three snowboards
D. reduce the number of trials each snowboarder completes
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16.A student conducted an experiment wherein she applied various

pesticides to mosquitoes to see which ones survived and which ones
died. To ensure she used the proper scientific method, she sprayed 10
mosquitoes in each trial and recorded the ones that survived. After
the first trial, she allowed the mosquitoes to reproduce and then
resprayed 10 of the offspring with the pesticide. The data she
collected is shown in the following table.

This data describes what phenomenon?

A. All the mosquitoes are dying because of exposure to all three
pesticides.
B. All the mosquitoes are surviving due to being resistant to all three
pesticides.
C. The mosquitoes are becoming resistant to the pesticides and
passing on that resistance to their offspring who are able to survive
in greater numbers.
D. All three pesticides have the same impact on mosquitoes during
each trial and could all be assumed safe to use by the student.

17. As part of a study on how skin type and redness correlate when
exposed to different amounts of UV light, a scientist set up an
experiment to see how much redness occurred on various skin types.
The scientist classified 100 people into six different categories of skin
type, then exposed them to increasingly higher doses of UV light and
recorded the level of redness that appeared on the skin.
Which is an independent variable and which is a dependent
variable in this experiment?
A. An independent variable is the skin type; a dependent variable is
the amount of UV light.
B. An independent variable is the redness; a dependent variable is the
amount of UV light.
C. An independent variable is the amount of UV light; a dependent
variable is the skin type.
D. An independent variable is the skin type; a dependent variable is
the redness.
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18. Paul, a child who was not growing as rapidly as he should, was
given growth hormone to stimulate his growth. Paul anticipated that
the hormone would enable him to reach an adult height of over six
feet, even though his parents are both below average height. In fact,
Paul’s adult height was 5 feet 7 inches.
What was wrong with Paul’s thinking?
A. Growth hormone is only one of several factors that determine a
person’s adult height.
B. Growth hormone, when administered as a drug, does not affect a
person’s height.
C. In order to grow to over six feet tall, Paul would have had to take
insulin, too.
D. In order to grow to over six feet tall, Paul would have had to take
testosterone, too.

19.A plant scientist developed a new hybrid grass by crossing a desert

grass with a shade grass. To determine the hybrid’s ideal growing
conditions, an experiment is performed in which the hybrid is grown
in four different planters. Each planter is provided sunlight and
water, as shown in the table below. The average height of the grass in
each planter is recorded weekly.

Which of the following conditions, if not met, would LEAST affect the
results of the experiment?
A. The depth of the soil should be identical in four planters.
B. The planters should be weed-free.
C. The same type of soil should be placed in all four planters.
D. The four planters should be kept on the same table.