The amplitude of a sound wave gets bigger and its frequency stays the same. What do you hear?Answer: A louder sound at the same pitch. Source: Wikipedia, Amplitude. Read 2026-10-08.
The frequency of a sound wave goes up. What do you hear?Answer: A higher pitch. Source: Wikipedia, Sound. Read 2026-10-08.
In a longitudinal wave, how does the medium move?Answer: Back and forth along the wave's direction of travel. Source: Wikipedia, Longitudinal wave. Read 2026-10-08.
In a sound wave, what is a region where the air particles are squeezed together called?Answer: A compression. Source: Wikipedia, Longitudinal wave. Read 2026-10-08.
In a transverse wave, how does the medium move?Answer: At right angles to the wave's direction of travel. Source: Wikipedia, Transverse wave. Read 2026-10-08.
Ripples pass a leaf floating on a pond. What does the leaf do?Answer: Bobs up and down in about the same place. Source: NASA Science, Tour of the Electromagnetic Spectrum: Anatomy of an Electromagnetic Wave. Read 2026-10-08.
What does a wave carry from one place to another?Answer: Energy. Source: NASA Science, Tour of the Electromagnetic Spectrum: Anatomy of an Electromagnetic Wave. Read 2026-10-08.
What is the material a mechanical wave travels through called?Answer: The medium. Source: NASA Science, Tour of the Electromagnetic Spectrum: Anatomy of an Electromagnetic Wave. Read 2026-10-08.
Which kind of wave can travel through empty space?Answer: Electromagnetic waves, such as light. Source: NASA Science, Tour of the Electromagnetic Spectrum: Anatomy of an Electromagnetic Wave. Read 2026-10-08.
Which of these is a longitudinal wave?Answer: Sound in air. Source: Wikipedia, Longitudinal wave. Read 2026-10-08.
Show all 32 questions (22 more)
Frequency, wavelength and speed 11
A frequency of 1 hertz (Hz) means what?Answer: One cycle each second. Source: Wikipedia, Hertz. Read 2026-10-08.
A radio wave travels at 300,000,000 m/s and has a frequency of 100,000,000 Hz. What is its wavelength?Answer: 3 m. Source: Wikipedia, Wavelength. Read 2026-10-08.
A sound travels at 340 m/s with a frequency of 170 Hz. What is its wavelength?Answer: 2 m. Source: Wikipedia, Wavelength. Read 2026-10-08.
A water wave travels at 12 m/s and its wavelength is 3 m. What is its frequency?Answer: 4 Hz. Source: Wikipedia, Wavelength. Read 2026-10-08.
A wave has a frequency of 4 Hz. What is its period?Answer: 0.25 s. Source: Wikipedia, Frequency. Read 2026-10-08.
A wave has a frequency of 5 Hz and a wavelength of 2 m. What is its speed?Answer: 10 m/s. Source: Wikipedia, Wavelength. Read 2026-10-08.
A wave keeps the same speed while its frequency doubles. What happens to its wavelength?Answer: It halves. Source: Wikipedia, Wavelength. Read 2026-10-08.
A wave travels 30 m in 5 s and its wavelength is 2 m. What is its frequency?Answer: 3 Hz. Source: Wikipedia, Wavelength. Read 2026-10-08.
One cycle of a wave takes 0.5 s. What is its frequency?Answer: 2 Hz. Source: Wikipedia, Frequency. Read 2026-10-08.
Ten crests pass a buoy in 5 seconds. What is the frequency of the waves?Answer: 2 Hz. Source: Wikipedia, Frequency. Read 2026-10-08.
Which equation links a wave's speed, frequency and wavelength?Answer: speed = frequency × wavelength. Source: Wikipedia, Wavelength. Read 2026-10-08.
What waves do 11
A crest meets a trough of the same size. What happens at that point?Answer: They cancel. Source: Wikipedia, Wave interference. Read 2026-10-08.
A pencil standing in a glass of water looks bent at the surface. Which wave behavior causes this?Answer: Refraction of light. Source: Wikipedia, Refraction. Read 2026-10-08.
A ray of light meets a flat mirror at an angle of incidence of 30°. What is its angle of reflection?Answer: 30°. Source: Wikipedia, Reflection (physics). Read 2026-10-08.
A siren sounds higher in pitch as an ambulance comes toward you and lower as it drives away. What is this called?Answer: The Doppler effect. Source: Wikipedia, Doppler effect. Read 2026-10-08.
A wave changes direction as it passes from one medium into another. What is this called?Answer: Refraction. Source: NASA Science, Tour of the Electromagnetic Spectrum: Wave Behaviors. Read 2026-10-08.
A wave hits a barrier and bounces back. What is this called?Answer: Reflection. Source: Wikipedia, Reflection (physics). Read 2026-10-08.
A wave slows down as it enters a new medium. What happens to its frequency and wavelength?Answer: The frequency stays the same and the wavelength gets shorter. Source: Wikipedia, Refraction. Read 2026-10-08.
Two crests of matching waves meet at the same point. What happens there?Answer: They add to make a bigger crest. Source: Wikipedia, Wave interference. Read 2026-10-08.
Waves spread out after passing through a narrow gap. What is this called?Answer: Diffraction. Source: Wikipedia, Diffraction. Read 2026-10-08.
What is an echo?Answer: A reflected sound that arrives after a delay. Source: Wikipedia, Echo. Read 2026-10-08.
You can hear a friend calling from behind a tree, though you cannot see them. Which behavior of sound explains it?Answer: Diffraction. Source: Wikipedia, Diffraction. Read 2026-10-08.
How this list was compiled: Questions, wrong choices and explanations were written for this site. Each fact was checked on the page named in the question's source line: Wikipedia (Transverse wave, Longitudinal wave, Wavelength, Frequency, Hertz, Amplitude, Sound, Reflection (physics), Echo, Refraction, Diffraction, Wave interference, Doppler effect) and NASA Science, Tour of the Electromagnetic Spectrum (Anatomy of an Electromagnetic Wave, Wave Behaviors), https://science.nasa.gov/ems/. All read 2026-10-08. Every speed, frequency, wavelength and period was calculated from the question's own numbers. Licence: own work
How it works
This waves quiz has 32 questions in three sets: kinds of wave, calculations with speed, frequency and wavelength, and what waves do when they reflect, refract, diffract and meet each other.
Read the full guide
Three sets
In this quiz, waves on water, on strings, in air and in empty space all appear. Kinds of wave asks how transverse and longitudinal waves move, what a medium is and what changes pitch and loudness. Frequency, wavelength and speed uses v = f × λ and period = 1 ÷ frequency. What waves do covers echoes, bending, spreading, interference and the Doppler effect.
No calculator needed
Every calculation divides or multiplies cleanly, such as 340 ÷ 170 or 5 × 2. Frequencies are in hertz, wavelengths in meters and speeds in meters per second.
Speed = frequency × wavelength, so frequency = speed ÷ wavelength and wavelength = speed ÷ frequency.
Reflection bounces back, refraction bends at a boundary, diffraction spreads past an edge or through a gap.
Amplitude goes with loudness, frequency with pitch.
Questions and answers
What is the difference between transverse and longitudinal waves?
In a transverse wave the medium moves at right angles to the wave's direction of travel, as on a shaken string. In a longitudinal wave it moves back and forth along that direction, as air does in a sound wave.
How do you calculate the speed of a wave?
Multiply the frequency by the wavelength. A wave of 5 hertz with a wavelength of 2 meters travels at 10 meters per second.
What is the difference between reflection, refraction and diffraction?
Reflection is a wave bouncing off a surface. Refraction is a wave changing direction as it passes into a medium where its speed is different. Diffraction is a wave spreading out as it passes an obstacle or goes through a gap.
Can sound travel through space?
No. Sound is a mechanical wave and needs a medium such as air, water or a solid to vibrate. The vacuum of space has none. Light and other electromagnetic waves need no medium, so they do cross space.