ASVAB General Science Practice Test 914791

Questions 5
Topics Decomposers, Groups, Mass vs. Weight, Minerals, Vectors

Study Guide

Decomposers

Decomposers (saprotrophs) are organisms such as bacteria and fungi that break down the organic matter in the dead bodies of plants and animals into simple nutrients.

Groups

The columns of the Periodic Table are called groups and all elements in a group have the same number of electrons in their outer electron shell. The group that an element occupies generally determines its chemical properties as the number of outer shell electrons establishes the way it reacts with other elements to form molecules. So, because each element has the same number of electrons in its outer shell, each has similar reactivity.

Mass vs. Weight

Mass is the amount of matter something has while weight is the force exerted on an object's mass by gravity. So, although a person's mass doesn't change when going from the Earth to the Moon, their weight will decrease because the force of the Moon's gravity is much less than that of Earth.

Minerals

Small quantities of certain minerals like iron, calcium, magnesium, and salt are important for nutrition and health.

Vectors

Velocity and displacement are vector quantities which means each is fully described by both a magnitude and a direction. In contrast, scalar quantities are quantities that are fully described by a magnitude only. A variable indicating a vector quantity will often be shown with an arrow symbol: \(\vec{v}\)