CAIE IGCSE Physics 3.4.10 Compression and Rarefaction Questions

Practise identifying and explaining compressions and rarefactions from particle spacing, pressure and graph or dot-pattern representations of sound.

Exam points

Identify compressions as closest particles with above-normal pressure, rarefactions as furthest particles with below-normal pressure, and map pressure peaks, troughs or dot spacing to labelled centres C and R.

[Maximum number: 2]

A sound wave travels through air. Fig. 6.1 shows a pressure-time graph for the air at one place.

Fig. 6.1

On Fig. 6.1:
- label one point C to indicate a compression
- label one point R to indicate a rarefaction.

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