Primary 5 · Science · Cycles: Water Cycle
Cycles: Water Cycle questions for Primary 5 Science
10 questions to work through online, 2 of them written out the way the paper asks. Answer and you get the working straight away, then a score at the end. No sign-up, and you can retake it as often as you like.
- Naming the change of state
- What speeds evaporation
- The amount of water
- Modelling the cycle
- Reading results
- Where the water goes
- Naming a process
- Applying the ideas
Same picture as the question above.
| Dish | Where it was left | Water left after 6 hours (ml) |
|---|---|---|
| A | sunny windowsill | 12 |
| B | shaded shelf | 38 |
| C | in front of a fan | 9 |
Answers and explanations for all 10 questions
Every answer with the reasoning behind it. Worth reading after you have tried the set — or on its own, if you are a parent marking it.
Which change of state is happening at the stage labelled X in the diagram above?
Answer: evaporation
At X, liquid water at the surface is turning into water vapour and rising. A liquid becoming a gas is evaporation.
Which change of state is happening at the stage labelled Y in the diagram above?
Answer: condensation
Clouds form when rising water vapour cools and turns back into tiny liquid droplets. A gas becoming a liquid is condensation.
Which two of these would make a puddle evaporate faster?
Answer: A and B only
Heat gives the water the energy to escape, and wind carries the vapour away so more can follow. Depth and shade both slow it down.
How does the total amount of water on Earth change over the course of the water cycle?
Answer: It stays the same; the water only moves and changes state.
The cycle moves water between the sea, the air and the land, and changes it between liquid, gas and solid. None is created or destroyed, so the total stays the same.
In the set-up above, which part of the water cycle do the droplets on the lid represent?
Answer: cloud formation
Vapour rises from the warm water, meets the cold lid, cools and turns back into liquid droplets — which is exactly how a cloud forms.
Based on the table above, which conclusion is correct?
Answer: Both warmth and moving air speed up evaporation.
The sunny dish and the fan dish both lost far more than the shaded one — 38 ml and 41 ml against 12 ml. Heat and moving air each speed evaporation up.
Which two of these describe what happens to rain after it falls on land?
Answer: A and B only
Rain either soaks into the ground or runs off into streams and rivers that carry it back to the sea, where the cycle begins again.
Water vapour in the air cools and turns into the tiny droplets that make a cloud. What is this process called?
Answer: condensation
Water vapour cooling into droplets is condensation.
Water falls from clouds as rain, and in cold countries as snow or hail. What is the general name for water falling from clouds?
Answer: precipitation
Water falling from clouds in any form is precipitation.
Why do clothes on a washing line dry faster on a warm windy day than on a cold still one?
Answer: Heat helps the water evaporate and the wind carries the vapour away.
Warmth gives the water the energy to evaporate, and wind moves the damp air away so more evaporation can keep happening.