Question 1

Which one of the following objects can be bent easily without breaking?

Accepted Answer

A. a towel. A towel is made of cloth/fabric, which is flexible and can be bent easily without breaking. The plastic spoon, sheet of glass and wooden ruler are rigid and would break if bent forcefully.

Question 2

Which part, (1), (2), (3) or (4), takes in water for the plant?

Accepted Answer

D. roots. The roots take in water (and dissolved mineral salts) from the soil for the plant. The flower is for reproduction, leaves make food and the stem transports water.

Question 3

Which one of the animals shown below is NOT an insect?

Accepted Answer

C. spider. Insects have 6 legs and 3 body parts. A spider is an arachnid with 8 legs and 2 body parts, so it is NOT an insect. The cockroach, mosquito and praying mantis are all insects.

Question 4

In which part of the digestive system allows water to be absorbed into the blood?

Accepted Answer

D. large intestine. The large intestine is the part of the digestive system that absorbs water from undigested food into the blood. The mouth, gullet and stomach are involved in earlier digestive processes.

Question 5

Tim made the following observations on the life cycle of an animal.
• There are 3 stages in the life cycle.
• The young does not look like the adult.
Which animal was Tim observing?

Accepted Answer

A. frog. A frog has 3 stages (egg → tadpole → adult) and the tadpole does not look like the adult frog. A beetle and butterfly have 4 stages; a cockroach has 3 stages but the nymph looks like the adult.

Question 6

In which one of the following will the two magnets pull each other together?

Accepted Answer

C. Two magnets side by side, left magnet S(top)/N(bottom), right magnet N(top)/S(bottom). Unlike poles attract; like poles repel. In option (3), the S of one magnet faces the N of the other (unlike poles facing), so the magnets pull each other together.

Question 7

The reading on the weighing scale shows that the mass of the apples is ____ kg.

Accepted Answer

C. 1.8. The hanging weighing scale dial is graduated 0–5 kg in 1 kg divisions, with 5 smaller divisions per kg (each = 0.2 kg). The needle points between 1 and 2, four small divisions past 1, giving 1.8 kg.

Question 8

Look at the picture below. Which one of the following diagrams explains why Jane can see the book on the table?

Accepted Answer

A. Light travels from the lamp to the book, then from the book to Jane's eyes. We see a non-luminous object when light from a light source hits the object, is reflected off it and enters our eyes. So light from the lamp must travel to the book and then be reflected from the book to Jane's eyes.

Question 9

Which one of the following is NOT a source of heat?

Accepted Answer

B. A blanket. A blanket does not produce heat; it only traps body heat to keep you warm. The Sun, a hot iron and a lighted bulb all give out heat and are therefore sources of heat.

Question 10

Raj boiled some water in the pot shown below. He is able to boil water using the metal pot. This is because metal is a ____.

Accepted Answer

C. good conductor of heat. Metal is a good conductor of heat, so heat from the stove is quickly conducted through the pot to the water, allowing the water to boil.

Question 11

Catherine would like to use a heat sensor connected to a datalogger to measure the temperature of a beaker of hot water. Which one of the following diagrams shows the correct position of the heat sensor when taking the temperature reading?

Accepted Answer

B. Heat sensor vertical with the tip fully submerged in the hot water. To take an accurate temperature reading, the heat sensor must be fully submerged in the hot water and held upright so that the bulb/tip is in contact with the water. Diagram (2) shows the sensor upright and properly submerged.

Question 12

An experiment was carried out with 4 objects A, B, C and D. The objects were made of different types of materials of similar size and thickness. They were dropped in a tank of water as shown in the diagram below.
Four children made a statement regarding the four objects in the tank.
Angela: Object A sinks in water.
Bernard: Object B floats on water.
Casey: Object C floats on water.
Denise: Object D sinks in water.
Who has/have made the correct statements regarding the experiment?

Accepted Answer

D. Bernard and Denise only. From the diagram: B floats on the water surface, D rests at the bottom (sinks). A is suspended in the middle (neither sinks nor floats clearly), and C is also suspended in mid-water (does not float on top). So only Bernard's statement (B floats) and Denise's statement (D sinks) are correct.

Question 13

Susan placed some fish in a tank and observed the number of fish in the tank after a month. She recorded her observations in the table below.
[Number of fish — At the start: 10; After one month: 20]
Based on the above, which characteristic of living thing is observed?

Accepted Answer

B. They reproduce.. The number of fish increased from 10 to 20 in one month, which means the fish produced more young of their own kind. This shows the characteristic of reproduction.

Question 14

Tommy saw a tree that had been struck by lightning during a recent thunderstorm at the back of his school field. He noticed that the leaves at part A has turned yellow. What could be the main reason that the leaves have turned yellow?

Accepted Answer

D. The stem cannot transport water to the leaves to make food.. Part A (the upper portion of the tree) has its stem broken below it. The stem transports water and mineral salts to the leaves. Because the stem is broken, water cannot reach the leaves at part A, so they cannot make food and turn yellow.

Question 15

The diagram below shows the human digestive system. Which one of the following statement correctly describes what happens at parts P, Q, R and S?

Accepted Answer

C. S — Food is not digested.. S is the gullet (oesophagus), which only moves food to the stomach — no digestion takes place there. P (large intestine) absorbs water (not undigested food); R (stomach) digests but does not absorb food into blood; Q (small intestine) absorbs digested food, it does not break food into smaller pieces.

Question 16

The diagrams below show the life cycles of organisms A and B. Based on the diagrams above, which of the following statement(s) is/are correct?
A The adult of both organisms lay eggs.
B There are three stages in each life cycle.
C Both the young of the organisms A and B do not resemble their adults.

Accepted Answer

B. A and B only. Organism A (grasshopper) has 3 stages (egg → nymph → adult) and organism B (chicken) has 3 stages (egg → chick → adult). Both adults lay eggs, so statement A is correct. Both have 3 stages so B is correct. The young of both resemble their adults, so C is wrong.

Question 17

Janine tried to remove a pin from a tray of objects consisting of plastic beads by using a bar magnet as shown below. Which one of the following statements explains why Janine was able to remove the pin from the beads?

Accepted Answer

C. The pin is made of a magnetic material.. A magnet attracts magnetic materials. The pin is made of iron/steel (a magnetic material) so it is attracted to the magnet and lifted out, while the plastic beads (non-magnetic) are left behind.

Question 18

Bradley placed a bar magnet on his toy boat. He placed the toy boat into a bucket of water and let it float as shown below. He stated that his boat can act as a compass. Based on his observation, what is the property of a magnet that allows Brad to use it as a compass?

Accepted Answer

D. Suspended magnets come to rest in the North-South direction.. A compass works because a freely suspended (or freely floating) magnet always comes to rest pointing in the North–South direction. This property allows the boat with a magnet on it to be used as a compass.

Question 19

Arun wanted to find out if the number of wire coils around the nail affects the strength of the electromagnet. Which of the following set-ups should he use?

Accepted Answer

D. C and D. For a fair test, only the number of wire coils may differ; all other variables (type of nail and number of batteries) must be kept the same. Set-ups C and D both use an iron nail and three batteries but have different numbers of coils, so they are the correct pair.

Question 20

Diagram 1 below shows a bar magnet. Diagram 2 shows the bar magnet being lowered on a tray of steel paper clips. Which of the following most likely shows the number of steel paper clips attracted to the points A, B and C as shown in diagram 1?

Accepted Answer

C. A=6, B=10, C=12. A magnet is strongest at its two poles and weakest in the middle. Point A is the middle of the magnet (fewest clips), while B and C are the two poles (more clips). Option (3) shows few at A and more at B and C, matching this pattern.

Question 21

Study the classification chart and the three animals, P, Q and R. Which of the following shows the correct classification of animals in boxes X and Y?

Accepted Answer

B. X=Q, Y=R. Animal P is a lizard (has scales, no shell). Animal Q is a tortoise (has scales and a shell). Animal R is a snail (no scales). So box X (has scales + has shell) = Q (tortoise), and box Y (does not have scales) = R (snail).

Question 22

Jonas blew to inflate the balloon in this set-up but he failed. Which one of the following statements explains his observation?

Accepted Answer

D. There is air occupying space in the plastic bottle.. The plastic bottle is sealed and already filled with air. Since air occupies space, there is no room for the balloon to expand inside the bottle, so Jonas could not inflate the balloon.

Question 23

Yusrina has two identical bottles filled with the same amount of water. She placed bottle A in the freezer and left the other bottle on the table. Both bottles were left overnight. The next day, Yusrina put both bottles together and tilted them. Which one of the following sets of bottles correctly shows what happens when they are slightly tilted to the right?

Accepted Answer

B. Bottle A (water level slants), bottle B (water level remains level). Bottle A's water has frozen into ice (solid) overnight, so when tilted, the ice keeps its definite shape and the surface does NOT tilt with gravity. Bottle B is still liquid water, which has no fixed shape, so its surface slants to remain horizontal when tilted. Wait — re-examining: the correct answer per the key is option (2): bottle A (ice, level unchanged) and bottle B (water, slants).

Question 24

Juliana set up an experiment as shown below. She connected two flasks X and Y, each with a capacity of 400 cm³, to an air pump. 200 cm³ of air is pumped into each of the conical flask. What is the amount of air in each of flasks X and Y when the air pump is pushed down once?

Accepted Answer

A. Flask X = 400 cm³, Flask Y = 300 cm³. Each flask holds 200 cm³ of air to start. Flask Y also has 100 cm³ of oil occupying space, leaving 300 cm³ of space for air. When the pump is pushed, air is compressed: Flask X (no oil) holds up to its full capacity of 400 cm³, while Flask Y can hold a maximum of 400 − 100 = 300 cm³ of air.

Question 25

All objects have a mass of 2 kg each. Which one of the following statements is true about the objects?

Accepted Answer

B. All the objects have definite volume.. All four objects are solids, and solids have a definite volume. They have the same mass (2 kg) so none is heaviest/lightest; their volumes differ (2110, 2150, 2180, 2130 cm³) so they don't occupy the same space.

Question 26

Sally poured 300 ml of water at 90°C into 4 different cups made of different materials as shown below. The table below shows the temperature of the water in the cups 15 minutes later. Based on the information in the table above, which material would be most suitable to make a container to store ice cream?

Accepted Answer

A. A. An ice cream container should be a poor conductor of heat so that heat from the surroundings does NOT pass into the ice cream quickly (keeping it cold). Cup A's water stayed hottest (80°C), meaning material A loses heat slowest — it is the best heat insulator and is therefore the most suitable for an ice cream container.

Question 27

Jenny conducted an experiment. She filled two beakers with 200 ml of hot water. She placed a metal ruler inside beaker B. She recorded the time taken for the hot water in both beakers to reach the room temperature of 25 °C. The results of her experiment are shown below. Which one of the following explains why the water took a shorter time to reach room temperature when a metal ruler was put inside the beaker of hot water?

Accepted Answer

D. The metal ruler is a good conductor of heat so it conducted heat away from the water quickly.. Metal is a good conductor of heat. The metal ruler in beaker B quickly conducted heat away from the hot water to the surroundings, so the water in beaker B cooled to room temperature faster than the water in beaker A.

Question 28

Jessie placed a glass of hot chocolate in a basin of cold water as shown below. Jessie left her set-up in the room at 30°C for 20 minutes. Which one of the following statements is true about her set-up 20 minutes later?

Accepted Answer

C. Temperature of cold water increased — It gained heat from the hot chocolate.. Heat always flows from a hotter object to a cooler object. The hot chocolate (80°C) is hotter than the cold water (10°C), so the cold water gains heat from the hot chocolate, and its temperature increases.

P4 Science SA2 2020 — Methodist Girls

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