New York State Regents Examination Earth and Space Sciences
Earth systems, weather, rocks, plate motion, the Moon, and seasons.
These questions are original. This is not an official New York State Regents Examination, and FreeExam is not affiliated with the New York State Education Department.
1.A student in Syracuse reads that Earth is closest to the Sun in early January and farthest in early July. January in Syracuse is winter, and July is summer. What best explains the seasons there?
2.Over one month in Rochester, the Moon changes from a thin crescent to a full moon and back toward a crescent. A friend says Earth's shadow makes those monthly shapes. What is the better account?
3.Students in Albany compare two events. In one, the full Moon darkens for a while. In the other, the Moon passes in front of the Sun at new moon. Which comparison is accurate?
4.At noon on a clear day in New York City, a student looks for the Sun and for the shadow of a flagpole. Where are the Sun and the shadow?
5.Just after sunrise on a clear morning in Buffalo, the Sun is low in the eastern sky. Which way does a parking-meter shadow point?
6.At a quarry near Kingston, a heavier rock and a lighter rock are released together from the same height. Air resistance is ignored. Which rock lands first?
7.In February, ice covers part of Lake Champlain while liquid water remains beneath it. Why does the ice stay on top of the lake?
8.A bedrock survey marker in northern New York moves with its plate at 2 centimeters a year. How far does the marker move in 30 years?
9.On a clear evening at New York Harbor, the Sun is low in the western sky. Which way does the shadow of a piling point?
10.A meter stick stands in a schoolyard in Albany. Its solar-noon shadow is measured in late June and again in late December. Which comparison is right?
11.On June 21 in White Plains, at about 41 degrees north latitude, a student expects the noon Sun to stand straight overhead so a flagpole has no shadow. What actually happens?
12.Around December 21, students across New York record daylight and talk about where the Sun's direct rays fall. Which statement fits that date in New York?
13.In late June, a camper near Syracuse watches a clear sunrise and compares it with the due-east mark on a compass. Where does the Sun rise?
14.Suppose Earth's axis stood straight up and down relative to its orbit, with no tilt, while New York kept the same latitude. What would happen to New York's seasons?
15.In January, Buffalo is in winter. What season is it in Australia then, and why are the two seasons different?
16.Around June 21, Syracuse has its longest daylight. Many of its hottest afternoons still come in July. Why can July be hotter than the solstice week?
17.From the shore at Rouses Point, near 45 degrees north latitude, a student finds Polaris above the northern horizon. About how high is Polaris, and what does that height tell?
18.Binghamton is at about 42 degrees north latitude. What is the Sun's altitude at solar noon on an equinox?
19.What causes day and night in New York, and about how long does one full cycle of day and night take?
20.Orion is high in the January evening sky over New York and is absent from the July evening sky. Why do the evening constellations change, and how long is one trip around the Sun?
21.A class in Schenectady compares New York with Japan. Japan has many active volcanoes. New York does not. Which explanation fits New York today?
22.The same side of the Moon always faces New York. A student calls the far side the dark side and says sunlight never reaches it. What is wrong with that claim?
23.From Rochester, the Moon is a waxing crescent with the bright curve on the right. Which phase comes next as more of the right side becomes bright?
24.A first-quarter Moon hangs over Ithaca, and a student expects a lunar eclipse that night. Why will a lunar eclipse not happen?
25.New York sees a full moon many times a year, but a lunar eclipse only sometimes. Why is there not a lunar eclipse at every full moon?
26.On a new-moon night in October, the tidal range at the Battery in lower Manhattan is larger than average. Why is the range large?
27.During first quarter, the difference between high tide and low tide at the Battery is smaller than at the previous full moon. Why is this tidal range smaller?
28.Both the Sun and the Moon pull on Earth's oceans, but the Moon controls New York's tides more than the Sun does. Why?
29.The Hudson River at Troy rises and falls on a tidal schedule, yet a sample of that water is fresh. Which statement fits Troy?
30.A family in Poughkeepsie notices that the Moon rises later tonight than it did last night. Why does moonrise come later on the next night?
31.A star chart used in a Plattsburgh classroom lists a bright star as several light-years away. What does a light-year measure?
32.The Sun lights a June afternoon on the Hudson. Where does the Sun's energy come from?
33.Astronomers at a New York observatory find that light from distant galaxies is shifted toward the red end of the spectrum. What does that redshift indicate?
34.Sensitive antennas detect faint microwave radiation coming from every direction in the sky, not from one New York broadcast tower. What is that radiation?
35.A student in Queens says the big bang was an explosion that happened with Earth at the center, flinging galaxies into empty space around New York. What is a better statement of the model?
36.A basalt sample formed at the Mid-Atlantic Ridge and moved with one side of the seafloor. It is now 3,000,000 centimeters from the ridge. That side moves 5 centimeters per year. How old is the sample?
37.Earth rotates 15 degrees in one hour. Through how many degrees does it rotate in 8 hours?
38.One New York town is at 74 degrees west longitude and another is at 79 degrees west. Earth rotates 15 degrees in 60 minutes. How does solar noon compare?
39.At midday the Sun over the Hudson looks white-yellow. At sunset it looks orange-red. Why is the sunset redder?
40.A 60-kilogram camera is carried to the Moon. Use 10 newtons of weight for each kilogram on Earth. The Moon's gravity is about one-sixth of Earth's. What is the camera's weight on the Moon?
41.Ice widens cracks in a Shawangunk cliff, and the broken pieces still sit in those cracks. A later flood in Rondout Creek carries some pieces downstream. What is the difference between the two changes?
42.Spring meltwater in the Ausable River picks up sand from a bank and moves it toward Lake Champlain. The sand grains were already loose. Which process is the moving of that sand?
43.A limestone garden wall in Albany becomes pitted after many years of rain. The stone was not carried away in chunks. Acidic water dissolved the calcite at the surface. What process is that?
44.Howe Caverns, in Schoharie County, is a cave in limestone. Passages follow cracks that widened underground over a long time. What enlarged the cave?
45.A road cut in the Hudson Valley shows four horizontal sedimentary layers. They have not been overturned. Which layer is oldest, and which rule says so?
46.At that same kind of road cut, a basalt dike cuts straight through all four sedimentary layers. The layers do not cut the dike. Which rock is younger than the four layers?
47.Pebbles of black shale sit inside the bottom of a sandstone layer along the Mohawk. The sandstone surrounds the pebbles. Which material is older?
48.In a Hudson Valley outcrop, tilted sedimentary layers end at an uneven surface, and flat sedimentary layers lie above that surface. The upper layers were not tilted with the lower ones. What is that surface?
49.The same short-lived, widespread shell species appears in a sedimentary layer near Kingston and in a layer near Batavia. The two rocks are not the same type. What can the shells show?
50.A student heats a mineral from a New York outcrop and says the parent isotope will now decay faster. What is true about the half-life?
51.A mineral starts with 80 grams of a parent isotope. The half-life is 2,000 years. How much parent isotope is left after 6,000 years?
52.Only one-eighth of a parent isotope remains in a crystal. The half-life is 4,000 years, and no daughter isotope was present at the start. How old is the crystal?
53.A geologist in the Finger Lakes region uses an isotope clock. After two half-lives, what fraction of the starting parent isotope is left?
54.A display in Albany includes an igneous rock from deep under the Adirondacks. Its interlocking crystals are several millimeters across. What do those large crystals show?
55.A shale near Cayuga Lake contains marine shells. The modern lake is fresh. What do the shells indicate about the rock and the past environment?
56.A student holds a single quartz crystal in one hand and a piece of granite from a New York building in the other. Why is the granite a rock rather than a mineral?
57.A quarry rock began as limestone. It was buried, heated, and squeezed. The calcite crystals grew larger, and the rock did not melt. What rock is it now?
58.Many roofs around Granville, in Washington County, use local slate that splits into flat sheets. The slate began as shale and was changed across a wide region during mountain building. What kind of metamorphism is that?
59.The Palisades along the Hudson are a sheet of igneous rock that cut into older sedimentary layers and baked the rock beside it. Which statement about age is correct?
60.The rocky outcrops in Central Park are mostly schist, with minerals aligned in wavy bands. How did that rock form?
61.A road cut exposes a jumble of clay, sand, and boulders that ice dropped directly. The deposit has no layers, and the grain sizes are mixed. What is it, and how was it sorted?
62.South of a glacial moraine on Long Island, meltwater laid down layers of sand and gravel. Grains in each layer are similar in size. What is this deposit, and why does it matter for wells?
63.A student at the Brooklyn waterfront asks which change would raise local sea level the most. Which answer is best?
64.Seneca Lake fills a long, deep north-south trough. The lake is far deeper than the streams flowing into it today could have cut by themselves. What shaped the trough?
65.A driller on Long Island compares a layer of coarse gravel with a layer of clay. Both can contain water. Which layer is the better aquifer, and why?
66.A small earthquake is felt in the Adirondacks. The focus was 8 kilometers down, and the epicenter was near the town that reported the shaking. What do those terms mean?
67.Niagara Falls drops toward Lake Ontario on the way from Lake Erie. Over many years the crest has shifted. Which way does erosion move the crest, and why?
68.A creek slows as it enters the quiet water of Seneca Lake, and sand that had been bouncing along the bed settles at the mouth. What process is the settling?
69.On a bend of the Genesee River, one bank is a steep cut and the other is a gentle gravel bar. Where is erosion faster?
70.A Catskill creek leaves a steep gorge and spreads onto a flat valley floor. It slows down. Which sediment does it carry farthest?
71.On a Southern Tier farm, the sand and clay in the soil match the shale and sandstone under the field. A dark layer on top is decayed leaves. Where did the mineral grains in the soil come from?
72.After a large earthquake, some distant stations record P waves, but a broad zone records no S waves. What does the missing S-wave zone show about Earth's outer core?
73.Water evaporates from the Atlantic, falls as snow on Whiteface Mountain, melts into the Ausable River, and later reaches the ocean again. What does this path show about the water?
74.On a warm day, maple trees on a Catskill slope release water vapor from their leaves into the air. What is that release called, and what cycle is it part of?
75.On a January night in Oswego, droplets form on the inside of a warm kitchen window. The glass is cold, and snow is outside. Where did the droplets come from?
76.On an October morning, Cayuga Lake appears to steam. The lake water is warmer than the air. What is the visible steam?
77.In March, rain falls on still-frozen ground in the Mohawk Valley while snow is also melting. Why is a rise in the river especially likely?
78.In the Finger Lakes one morning, the air temperature and the dew point are both 10 degrees Celsius. By afternoon the air is 20 degrees Celsius and the dew point is still 10 degrees Celsius. What happened to the relative humidity?
79.A moist wind from the west is forced up the western side of the Catskills. The rising air expands and cools, and a cloud forms. Why did the cloud appear?
80.A cold front passes Ithaca in the afternoon. Which set of changes is most likely?
81.A warm front approaches Newburgh from the south. Which weather sequence is most likely as the front arrives and then passes?
82.In December the air is minus 12 degrees Celsius and the open water of Lake Ontario is 6 degrees Celsius. A west wind blows across the lake. Where is heavy lake-effect snow most likely?
83.On a sunny afternoon at Coney Island, the land is hotter than the nearby ocean. Which way does the sea breeze blow?
84.A moist wind blows from the west toward the Catskill Mountains and is forced upward. Where is precipitation greater?
85.A high-pressure system is centered over the Capital District. What kind of sky is most likely, and why?
86.A low-pressure system sits over the Great Lakes and moves toward New York. What is the most likely pattern of air and wind?
87.A student in Brooklyn says the way a sink drains proves that Earth rotates. What is the better use of the Coriolis effect?
88.A hurricane approaches the Rockaways. Forecasters warn about storm surge as well as rain. What is storm surge?
89.A winter storm off the coast is called a nor'easter as it affects Long Island. Which description fits?
90.Rochester has one unusually cold week in January. A student says the city's climate has become polar. What is the best response?
91.In January, air moves from central Canada into New York without first crossing an ocean. What is that air like at its source?
92.In July, air moves from the Gulf of Mexico into the Hudson Valley. What is that air like, and what weather can it feed?
93.Storms often reach Buffalo before they reach Albany. Which high-altitude feature helps explain that usual west-to-east path?
94.Forecasters say a strong El Niño may change New York's storm track this winter. What is El Niño?
95.On one clear day, Montauk reaches 24 degrees Celsius and falls to 18 degrees Celsius. Glens Falls reaches 29 degrees Celsius and falls to 13 degrees Celsius. Why is the inland range larger?
96.After a snowfall near Syracuse, a snow-covered meadow stays cooler in the afternoon Sun than a dark plowed field beside it. Why?
97.On a calm night, midtown Manhattan is warmer than a grassy field in nearby Orange County. What best explains the city's higher temperature?
98.Sunlight warms a field in the Mohawk Valley, and the ground gives off infrared radiation. How do carbon dioxide and water vapor in the air affect that energy?
99.High over New York, a layer of ozone absorbs ultraviolet light before much of it reaches the ground. How is damage to that layer related to recent climate warming?
100.During the late twentieth century, rain lowered the pH of some Adirondack lakes that had little natural buffering. What was a major source of that acidity?
101.One Adirondack lake has a pH of 5. A nearby lake has a pH of 6. How do their hydrogen ion concentrations compare?
102.A growing spruce in the Adirondacks takes in carbon dioxide through its needles and stores carbon in new wood. Which process removes that carbon dioxide from the air?
103.A furnace in Rochester burns natural gas to heat a home. The gas is mostly methane that had been stored underground. What does the burning add to the air?
104.A town on the Long Island coast compares electricity from offshore wind with electricity from burning coal. Which resource is renewable on a human timescale?
105.A Long Island village pumps more groundwater each summer than rainfall puts back into the aquifer. If that continues for many years, what happens to the water table?
106.After years of heavy pumping, wells near Long Island's south shore begin to draw salty water. Why can salt water move into those wells?
107.In February, ice covers a deep Adirondack lake, but the water at the bottom is about 4 degrees Celsius and still liquid. Why is the bottom not frozen?
108.A sandstone core from a Long Island well has a total volume of 250 cubic centimeters, including 50 cubic centimeters of pore space. What is the porosity?