Question 1

Which one of the following is a non-living thing?

Accepted Answer

D. A wooden chair. A wooden chair is non-living: it cannot grow, reproduce, respond to stimuli, or need air/food/water. The cat, bird and young plant are all living things performing life processes.

Question 2

Humans go through a difference in height as they age over the years as shown below. Which characteristic of living things does this difference in height show?

Accepted Answer

B. Living things grow.. An increase in height from baby to boy to adult man is an increase in size over time, which is the characteristic of growth in living things.

Question 3

Weiming observed a plant as shown below. Which one of the following characteristics can help Weiming to decide if the plant is a living thing?
A : Colour of leaves
B : Presence of leaves
C : Leaves are able to close on its own
D : Leaves start to wither and drop when not watered

Accepted Answer

B. C and D only. Living things respond to stimuli and need water. Leaves closing on their own (response to touch) and leaves withering when not watered (need for water) are characteristics of living things. Colour and presence of leaves alone do not show life — non-living models can also have leaves of a certain colour.

Question 4

Which of the following is the outer covering for mammals?

Accepted Answer

A. hair. Mammals are characterised by hair/fur as their outer body covering. Shells are found on molluscs, scales on fish/reptiles, and feathers on birds.

Question 5

Study the classification chart below. Which of the following set of headings best represents Group X and Y?

Accepted Answer

D. Group X: Have three body parts / Group Y: Do not have three body parts. Group X (bee and ant) are insects which have three body parts (head, thorax, abdomen). Group Y (snake and crocodile) are reptiles which have a single body and do not have three body parts.

Question 6

Mary saw a living thing in her garden. She described the characteristics of the living thing as shown below. (It reproduces from spores. It cannot make its own food.) Which of the following groups of living things does it most likely belong to?

Accepted Answer

C. fungi. Fungi reproduce by spores and cannot make their own food (no chlorophyll, so they cannot photosynthesise). Plants make their own food, animals do not reproduce by spores, and bacteria reproduce by cell division, not spores.

Question 7

Three students made the following statements about a body system. (The heart is an important part of this system. It carries digested food to all parts of the body. It transports oxygen from the lungs to the heart.) Which body system best represents the students' descriptions?

Accepted Answer

C. circulatory system. The circulatory system includes the heart as a key organ and uses blood to transport digested food and oxygen around the body, matching all three student statements.

Question 8

Study the body parts of a human shown below. (nose, lungs, mouth, windpipe) Which one of the following parts does not belong in the same body system?

Accepted Answer

C. mouth. Nose, lungs and windpipe are all parts of the respiratory system. The mouth is primarily part of the digestive system, so it does not belong with the others.

Question 9

Wearing a mask to cover our mouth and nose is important in preventing the spread of viruses. If someone gets infected with a virus, one of the common symptoms is difficulty in breathing. Which one of the body systems are we protecting through the use of masks?

Accepted Answer

D. respiratory system. Masks cover the nose and mouth — the entry points to the airways — protecting the lungs and other parts of the respiratory system from inhaling virus particles. The symptom mentioned (difficulty breathing) is also a respiratory symptom.

Question 10

Part X helps in the process of digestion. In what way does it help in the digestion of food?

Accepted Answer

C. It cuts the food into smaller pieces.. Part X is the teeth, as shown by the drawing of an open mouth with teeth labelled 'Part X'. Teeth physically cut and grind food into smaller pieces (physical digestion). Saliva is from the salivary glands, the tongue rolls food into a bolus, and chemical breakdown into simpler substances is done by digestive juices.

Question 11

Adam describes an organ in the digestive system as shown below. (I am a long tube in the digestive system. I work together with another system to push food for digestion. I do not produce any digestive juices.) Which organ, A, B, C or D, best represents Adam's description?

Accepted Answer

A. A. The gullet (oesophagus) is a long tube that works with the muscular system to push food (peristalsis) down to the stomach and does not produce digestive juices. In the diagram, A is the labelled position of the gullet in the upper chest. The stomach (B) and intestines (C, D) all produce or contain digestive juices.

Question 12

Which one of the following graphs represent the amount of undigested food entering the small intestine and large intestine respectively?

Accepted Answer

B. A bar graph where the small intestine bar is taller than the large intestine bar.. Most of the food digested in the stomach moves into the small intestine, where further digestion and absorption occur. By the time material reaches the large intestine, most digestible nutrients have been absorbed, so the amount of undigested food entering the small intestine is greater than that entering the large intestine.

Question 13

The graph below shows the amount of digested food in different parts of the digestive system. Which of the following diagrams matches the graph above?

Accepted Answer

A. Diagram with labels top to bottom: Z, Y, X, W. The bar graph shows W highest, then X, then Y and Z lowest. The most digested food is found furthest along the digestive tract (small intestine), and the least at the start (mouth/gullet). Matching W (most) to the lowest position (small intestine) and Z (least) to the topmost position (mouth) gives the labelling order Z, Y, X, W from top to bottom.

Question 14

Which of the following materials comes from plants?

Accepted Answer

C. cotton. Cotton is obtained from the seed fibres of the cotton plant. Clay and metal come from the ground (non-plant), and wool comes from sheep (an animal).

Question 15

Vinitha has four bags, each made of a different material. Each bag is able to hold objects up to a certain weight. The table below shows how much weight each bag can hold without breaking. Which bag should Vinitha use to carry an object weighing 9kg?

Accepted Answer

D. D. To carry a 9 kg object the bag must hold at least 9 kg without breaking. Bag A holds 6 kg, B holds 8 kg and C holds 2 kg — all break under 9 kg. Only Bag D holds up to 10 kg, so it is the only safe choice.

Question 16

Philip conducted several tests on materials, A, B, C and D. He recorded his results in the table below. A tick (✓) indicates the presence of the property and a cross (X) indicates the absence of the property. Based on Philip's test results, which is the most suitable material to make a car windscreen?

Accepted Answer

B. B. A car windscreen must be waterproof (to keep rain out) and transparent (so the driver can see through). Flexibility is not required and would in fact be unsuitable. Material B is waterproof and transparent but not flexible, making it the best fit. Material A is also flexible (unsuitable), C is not transparent, and D is not waterproof.

Question 17

Siti wants to use a container to bring her pet hamster to the vet. Her mother reminds her to keep it in a container which has the following properties. (Properties of the container: It is light. It is transparent. It does not break easily.) Which material should the container be made of?

Accepted Answer

A. plastic. Plastic satisfies all three properties: it is light, transparent (clear plastic), and does not break easily. Metal is not transparent. Glass is transparent but breaks easily. Wood is opaque.

Question 18

A student tests several types of magnets. Which of the following observation could best help her compare the strengths of the different types of magnets?

Accepted Answer

D. The distance at which an object is attracted to the magnets. A stronger magnet can attract an object from a greater distance, so measuring the distance at which an object starts being attracted is a fair comparison of magnetic strength. Size, weight and the shape of the attracted object do not directly indicate magnetic strength.

Question 19

When a bar magnet is cut into two pieces, as shown below. You will get ____.

Accepted Answer

B. Two pieces each labelled N S — i.e. each piece is still a complete bar magnet with a north and a south pole.. When a bar magnet is cut, each piece becomes a smaller complete bar magnet with its own north and south poles. A single magnet cannot exist with only one type of pole.

Question 20

Kai Hui had two metal bars, Bar X and Bar Y. She placed both bars as shown below and made the observations. In the first experiment, Bar Y moved towards Bar X. In the second experiment, she then flipped Bar X around and again, Bar Y moved towards Bar X. Which one of the following is true about the two metal bars?

Accepted Answer

C. One is a magnet while the other is a magnetic bar.. If both bars were magnets, flipping one would cause repulsion (like poles facing each other), not continued attraction. Since attraction occurred in both orientations, one bar must be a magnet and the other must be a magnetic material (a bar made of magnetic material such as iron). A magnet always attracts a magnetic material regardless of pole orientation.

Question 21

Ahmad carried out an experiment as shown below. In set-up A, there was no iron rod in the coils while there was an iron rod with coils in set-up B. He changed the number of coils in both set-ups and measured the pins attracted. The results are recorded in a table as shown below. Based on results, which of the following is correct?

Accepted Answer

C. There is more magnetic strength when there is more coils.. In both set-ups, as the number of coils increases (4 → 8 → 12), the number of pins attracted also increases. Set-up A: 2, 4, 6 pins. Set-up B: 6, 8, 10 pins. Both show that more coils produce greater magnetic strength. Set-up A also shows there IS magnetic strength without an iron rod (it attracts pins), so options (1) and (2) are wrong. The number of batteries was not varied, so (4) cannot be concluded.

Question 22

The diagram below shows five teddy bears holding hands. There are magnets inside their hands. Based on the diagram above, which one of the following could represent the correct poles of Q, R and T?

Accepted Answer

A. Q: north, R: north, T: south. For the bears to hold hands, the touching pairs of poles must be opposite (unlike poles attract). Working through the chain of five bears, the poles at the outer ends (Q on the far left bear, T on the far right bear) and the pole between two adjacent bears (R) must satisfy attraction at every interface. Option (1) (north, north, south) is the only set consistent with a valid alternating-pole arrangement across all five bears.

Question 23

Study the floating pot of plant as shown below. For the pot of plant to float, there must be a minimum of ______ magnet(s) at work.

Accepted Answer

B. two. To make the pot float in mid-air above the stand by magnetic force, like poles of two magnets must face each other so that they repel. This requires at least one magnet in the pot and one magnet in the stand — a minimum of two magnets in total.

P3 Science SA2 2020 — Rosyth

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