<p>Yes, it’s very clear you haven’t touched upon the subject this year given you don’t understand how forces work. Air resistance is a force acting in the opposite way of gravity. This would affect distance.</p>
<p>I’m not trying to be an ass. I, too, read the introduction stating that it was all constant. None of us know what the real answer is, and I was just stating my opinion. You didn’t have to be so blatantly bothered by it.
That’s the thing about these posts… you all seem so sure about every answer you mark. If you were wrong about “mundane circumstances” couldn’t you be wrong about this experiment’s question? Come on.</p>
<p>My apologies, then. It came off to me as a smart ass comment.
It said the air pressure INSIDE the laboratory was constant.
It did not state that the air pressure was constant from the surface of the earth to the laboratory located above.
The issue is that the effects of gravity and what not weren’t discussed at all, while air pressure did get a mention. Distance is a clear factor in gravitational force, but air resistance decreases at higher elevations. I see no motive for lowering gravity’s effect, however. Air resistance, on the other hand, adds to the force of gravity and cause it to reach its peak quickly. The least of that, the better. The least of gravity, the better? Not really, because the force of gravity determines acceleration and acceleration determines velocity and the velocity is going to have an impact on the inelastic collision and the momentum with which the ball bounces back up. The end number you get will remain the same no matter what the gravity is (albeit like, zero or something.). I don’t believe the same can be said for the air resistance. This would be a complex physics problem, IMO, if you want to give it that much thought.</p>
<p>Can Errbody drop this question now? Did they wash the roots to get rid of the shoots, or to remove the sucrates?</p>
<p>To get rid of any extra mass</p>
<p>@Ethereal</p>
<p>I don’t think that anyone is arguing that the passage said that air resistance was “kept constant at all elevations around the globe,” as that doesn’t make any sense… Instead, the intro implied that air resistance was constant, ie the same, for ALL balls dropped, which would mean that the experiment would produce proportional results for ALL balls and air resistance could be considered negligible/ignorable.</p>
<p>I put air resistance using the same logic as Ethereal but uh…what was the actual question again? XD</p>
<p>question, did they state the difference between the altitudes at which the experiments were done because I honestly don’t think the change in gravity if the difference in altitude was like 10m would great seeing that you’d just be adding 10 to 6000+ kilometers that is the earth’s radius.</p>
<p>I didn’t take the test though so I can’t really say</p>
<p>Do gravity and air resistance decrease at the same rate as the distance from the earth increases? This may determine which one they chose, especially if one decreases exponentially.</p>
<p>Wayy easier than September. Not sure how much the scale will change though with that in mind.</p>
<p>It seems like a very ambiguous question to me. The question mentioned that it was at a higher altitude, which lends itself to the gravity side of the argument.</p>
<p>The question also mentioned that the laboratory kept very specific atmospheric conditions within the lab, which lends itself to air resistance. </p>
<p>I don’t see why both of these things were included in the question, because if you cut out the other half, it would be much more clear.</p>
<p>Is there a way to contact the ACT about this? I know that it’s REALLY unlikely that anything will be done, but it’d be nice to try…</p>
<p>Yes there is a way, I think the contact info is on the act website. I doubt they would change it, but they might if enough people complained.</p>
<p>fdgjfg, That’s exactly what I thought. They mentioned it was at a high alt, suggesting gravity. And yet at the same time they mentioned the constant atmospheric conditions in the laboratory, suggesting air resistance.</p>
<p>I didn’t really know which to pick because of this. Ultimately I ended up choosing air resistance, only because I figured that the ACT would not expect people to know that gravity was not constant at all altitudes… </p>
<p>Personally I will be upset if they don’t either take this question off, or give credit to either the air resistance or gravity answer (as in, if they made it so either would be correct)… it was really an ambiguous question :/</p>
<p>The question specifically asked why they moved the lab to a higher altitude not to a different location in general, right? Then they said that atmospheric conditions would be constant in the laboratory, which has nothing to do with the altitude. They could have constructed the laboratory anywhere and it would still have the constant atmospheric conditions. I don’t know, that was my reasoning so then I picked gravity since that was the only factor that I thought would be directly related to the altitude even IN the lab. I hope it’s thrown out :/</p>
<p>Air pressure is also lower at higher altitudes. Change in gravity IS negligible in this situation. Even if the change in gravity was not negligible in this situation, how would lowering the gravitational acceleration of the balls help this experiment in any way? This experiments main focus is on how high the balls bounce after falling from a specific height. Because the different balls have different densities, air resistance is a large factor in the different accelerations of the balls. Each ball experiences the same effects of gravity, whether at high altitudes or low altitudes. The same cannot be said about the effects of air resistance.</p>
<p>So the answer is 100% air resistance.</p>
<p>Yeah, that’s the main reason I was iffy about my answer 
bleh</p>
<p>By the time I got to Science I was ****SSSED. I thought that the ACT people were tricking us by giving us easier Practice tests -_- I left the whole fighting scientists and at the end just filled in anything for the 7 questions :(</p>
<p>Runningpop and I are thinking on the same lines, I believe.
See, changing the gravity will have no effect on how high it bounces back up. It will have an impact on how LONG it takes to get up, and how LONG it takes to get down, but the distance remains the same.</p>
<p>Air resistance, on the other hand, doesn’t affect what the height you drop it at is (because regardless of the situation you drop it at whatever height) but it skews the result of how high it bounces back up.</p>
<p>^correct, the answer is air resistence. Even if less gravity made the ball accelerated less on the way down, it would be offset proportionally by the way gravity would affect it on the way down, so it would be the same at any altitude.</p>