The Man’s
PSSA
Practice
For the bean planter experiment featuring Evan,
what most likely was the hypothesis for Evan’s
experiment? Choose one of the 4 choices.
Choice B- Bean plants will grow better if they
are not too close together.
Choice A- watered every day (Not correct, he
used the same amount of water, it was
constant)
Choice C- Depth of 1 cm (Not correct, depth was
the same for all plants, it was constant)
Choice D- Fertilizer (Not correct, no mention of
fertilizer)
For the bean planter experiment featuring
Evan, what was the independent variable?
Choose one of the 4 choices.
Choice D- Distance between the seeds (it
was varied with different distances to see
if plants grew taller).
Incorrect Answer Choices:
Choice A- Type of seed (they were all bean
seeds)
Choice B- Number of leaves (it’s a dep.
Variable)
Choice C- Watering frequency was held
constant
For the bean planter experiment featuring
Evan, which planters (not which plants)
provide evidence to support Evan’s
hypothesis?
Choice D- Planters 1 & 4
(They had the greatest spacing between plants
and the tallest plant heights)
For the bean planter experiment featuring Evan,
what other variable could Evan measure to help
support his hypothesis?
Choice A- Number of beans (since they are
bean plants that are close together)
Choices B & C (how long it takes to water
each planter & the avg. temp. are both
constants)
Choice D- Vein pattern (who cares?)
Variables
Pan 1
Pan 2
Pan 3
Pan 4
Temperature
-10oC
0oC
15oC
30oC
Light
conditions
kept in
darkness
kept in bright
light
kept in
darkness
kept in bright
light
A student wanted to study the amount of mold growing
on pizza at different temperatures.
One error made in setting up the experiment was that
the four pans of pizza
(1) were at different temperatures
(2) were different sizes
(3) had different ingredients
(4) received different amounts of light
A student set up the experiment below to learn about
plant growth. Identify one variable that is being held
constant in this experiment & Explain why it needs to
be held constant.
Amount of soil, amount of sunlight, temperature,
etc. so they don’t affect the plant growth since the
student is ONLY examining the effect of water on
plant growth.
A farmer grows and sells flowering plants. The best-selling plants are
the ones with the most blossoms. The farmer reads an advertisement
for a plant food saying that it? will make plants grow faster and taller.
The farmer predicts that taller plants will have more blossoms and
performs the following experiment to test this hypothesis. Two
groups of 10 plants each are grown in identical pots filled with equal
amounts of identical soil. The amount of sunlight, the room
temperature, and the amount of water are held constant for both
groups. Group A is given plant food at regular intervals according to
the instructions on the package. Group B is not given plant food. The
farmer observes the plants after 15 weeks of growth.
State the farmer's original hypothesis.
Based on the results of this experiment, is the farmer's original
hypothesis correct? Explain your answer.
Taller plants will have more blossoms.
No, b/c the taller plants with plant food had slightly fewer
blossoms (Group A)