Unit 5: Magnetic Fields
Physics C: E&M · Unit 5 · Paper 3

Magnetic Fields unit test

A test on this unit alone, marked as a percentage and a letter grade — for the test your class is actually sitting, rather than for May. Answer everything, then submit once: seeing the answer to question 3 before attempting question 4 makes the final percentage meaningless.

Each paper is built from this unit’s 21 terms and is the same for everyone, so a teacher can assign “Unit 5, Paper 3” and every student sits the identical test. Multiple choice is marked objectively; the written sections you mark yourself against the model answer and rubric.
Suggested time 37 min 34 points0/17 attempted
1

Field of a finite wire segment

2

Ampère's law vs Biot-Savart

3

Field of a long straight wire

4

Field inside a solenoid

5

Field at the center of a circular loop

6

Biot-Savart law

7

Mass spectrometer

8

Force on a current-carrying wire

9

Magnetic dipole

10

Why magnetic force does no work

11

Force between parallel wires

12

Right-hand rules summary

Short answer 1. Define or explain: Magnetic force on a charge

3 pts

Short answer 2. Define or explain: Cyclotron frequency

3 pts

Short answer 3. Define or explain: Choosing an Ampèrian loop

3 pts

Short answer 4. Define or explain: Hall effect

3 pts

Free response

10 pts

Students determine the number of turns per unit length of a long solenoid by measuring the magnetic field at its center with a Hall probe for several values of the current. I (A) 0.50 1.00 1.50 2.00 2.50 B (mT) 0.63 1.24 1.90 2.50 3.15

A(i). Explain why the probe must be positioned near the middle of the solenoid rather than near an end. A(ii). Describe one step that would reduce experimental uncertainty.

B(i). State the expression for the magnetic field inside a long solenoid and indicate what quantities the students should graph to obtain a straight line usable to determine the turn density. B(ii). State what the slope of that graph represents.

C(i). Describe the axis labels, with units, and the positions of the plotted points. C(ii). Describe the best-fit line, including what its vertical intercept should be and why.

D. Using the best-fit line described in part C, calculate an experimental value for the number of turns per unit length of the solenoid.