Questions where students often pick the tempting wrong answer — make sure you know the right one:
When a wave travels through water, what happens to the water itself?✗ The water moves along with the wave from one place to another.✓ The water oscillates about a fixed point; the wave transfers energy, not matter.
How do you see a non-luminous object like a book?✗ Your eyes send out beams of vision that hit the book and let you see it.✓ Light from a source reflects off the book and enters your eyes.
What property of a sound wave determines its pitch?✗ Amplitude determines pitch — a bigger wave is a higher-pitched note.✓ The frequency — higher frequency means higher pitch.
When a water wave moves from deep into shallow water, what happens?✗ Speed and wavelength both increase✓ Speed decreases and wavelength decreases, frequency stays the same
Why does light bend when it enters a denser medium like glass?✗ Because the medium is denser, it physically blocks part of the light and forces it to turn.✓ Because it slows down — the change in speed at the boundary causes the wavefront to bend (towards the normal).
Practise Waves — free games
Test yourself with these quick revision games for this topic:
