Year 10 Textbook

St. Mary’s College Science Department
Year 10 Science
For example: A car starts from rest, accelerates for a while, then goes at a
steady speed for a while and finally slows down to rest again. The graph of its
movement will look like the one below.
Speed
Accelerating
Moving at a
steady
Slowing down
Time
When you have got a Speed – Time Graph the steepness (gradient) of the line
can tell you the acceleration.
Look at the Speed – Time graph below.
25 m/s
0 m/s
50 150 secs
Time
The speed has increased from 0 m/s up to 25 m/s during the first 50 seconds.
The acceleration can be worked out from the change of speed and the time
needed to change the speed.
The distance travelled can also be found from a Speed-Time graph.
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