Need help with a child's science question for school

[I'm Retarded?]

It's an awkward question but my take on it is that it's trying to teach that in the context of a scientific experiment, you need to rely on empirical measurements (2) rather than the casual observations (1, 3, 4) that you might be used to looking at in everyday life.

this. it's a poorly thought-out question, but it's being given to a fuckin 11 year old so everyone saying shit like bubbles can form due to impurities in the water or whatever are massively overthinking it. this is one of those tests that's training you to clue into the Correct Thinking so doing Deep Rhetorical Analysis on each answer will only lead to madness. the correct answer is the one the teacher says you're supposed to choose.

 

[Dagoth AMOGUS]

Want my honest opinion? The best answer is whatever the teacher wants to see.

 

[The Cheese Aisle]

Can't water be superheated to over 100°C and not be boiling? Like if you put it in the microwave for a long time, it will be over the boiling point and any disturbance will cause it to instantly boil and explode. Same thing with super cooling where water can be below zero and still be liquid until disturbed. So I think water can be 100° and not be boiling.

I could be wrong but I think that boiling technically refers to a liquid changing into a gas. So I would say the appearance of bubbles means that boiling is taking place.

no you're correct and I came here to say this. 4 is incorrect because of the phenomenon of superheating.

 

[Oliver Onions]

I'd say (2) as well. (3) and (4) can be indicative of boiling but not confirmation, and at least for the purposes of an 11yo's science homework I would think it is sufficient to state objectively that so long as the water is at or above 100 degrees it will be boiling.

 

[Lemmingwiser]

What's the last time the thermometer was tested for accuracy?

 

[Stonewall Jackson]

Yes it's a retarded question that's open to interpretation but they're clearly expecting answer 2.

The point of the exercise is for the student to demonstrate that they are aware water boils at 100C.

 

[Black Man Underwear]

If your niece has a textbook of some kind I'd recommend consulting it. At her grade level more often than not these questions are directly answered in the material.

I would say 2 or 4 or both are probably correct. I'm not sure. This is for kids so if you have to think too hard you're probably overthinking it.

Look over the rest of the homework/test/quiz/etc. and see if you can establish a pattern. If this is about boiling points, I'd choose 2.

Most childrens' homework/exams are poorly written in a question bank circulated to teachers everywhere. Gone are the days when they would be creative. Try googling it.

 

[Overly Serious]

No answer is perfect. I would lean towards 4 as the formation of bubbles is probably indicating boiling is taking place presuming they're continuing to form and weren't there before, though as I said, that's not a perfect answer. I prefer it over 2 though because it is at least teaching children to look for observational evidence of something actually happening, rather than a reading telling them something should be happening.

The cause of the bubbles might be something else and their absence may not prove it isn't, but Science is about observation not assumption and #4 relies on that principle and #2 on the latter.

 

[The Repeated Meme]

2) seems like the most correct answer. On a test, when other answers appear correct, you generally choose the 'most correct' one.

 

[donksmanSupreme42]

phase change

 

[Freshly Baked Socks]

I used to hate badly written ambiguous questions at school.

Yeah. And my second pet peeve is an instructor that allows the students to easily argue for credit with "technically acceptable" wrong answers. When the final exam comes, there is no room for "technically acceptably right" wrong answers. This all points to a lack of high quality educators (imho).

 

[Gregis]

Guys you're all wrong, and I know because I searched for uses of the word "remain" in the thread and no one pointed this out. The most salient word in (2) is "remains". If there is heat being added to the water by the flame but the temperature remains the same, then the added energy is driving a phase transition instead of heating the water, i.e. the water is being boiled. Superheating is irrelevant, the water isn't superheating because (2) tells you not only that a thermometer reading of 100C is observed, but that the water is staying at that temperature. You don't have to know the pressure either, in fact by observing the water staying at the same temperature you're establishing that's the temperature for the phase transition and you can derive the atmospheric pressure. (2) is correct, because of the word "remains".