i have attached the questions since kaplan has inconveniently blocked copying....😡
why wouldnt you need angle of elevation? wtf
why wouldnt you need angle of elevation? wtf
projectile question kaplan
- Thread starter psychme
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Velocity is a vector, so you would know the angle by knowing the velocity.
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Unless the velocity of the cannon ball resembled a common triangle (ie. 3-4-5 triangle), I'm not sure it's even possible to solve it with that much information. Had they given you the initial velocity, the angle of launch and gravity (assuming its different from earth I guess), you could of found the time in air and multiplied that by the horizontal velocity. Perhaps I'm missing something. Every time I call out "error" on a problem, I always find myself being corrected shortly after 😀. Personally I would of gone with A as well.
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Just because you can't do it easily doesn't mean you can't do it. I don't think the question is asking what's the least amount of info you needed to figure this out on the MCAT. You already know the angle by knowing the velocity.
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By having C with the angle specifically mentioned, they've created a bit of a poor question. In reality, velocity implies an angle, so we do know the direction (arguably, of course, it's possible we do not know the direction of g in comparison with the ground or do not know that the vectors given by the velocity are in reference to the ground; however, this would be overthinking the question). I probably would have gone with C because it is more explicit in terms of the angle than is B (since both are given). A is definitely wrong (sorry) because you could have gotten the "time to travel" from the angle (in other words, it's definitely redundant); whereas C is technically redundant but a more likely mistake on the part of the test writer.
i had this exact same question a while ago, same problem too haha. kaplan messed this one up, lead you into one of their traps i guess so they can market it... velocity is a vector as ppl have mentioned so it carriers the Vx and Vy values with it, though i have seen problems where they say velocity but really meant speed.. one of the reasons why you shouldnt limit yourself to one company for test materials!
