Study Guide

Field 219: Technology Education 
Sample Multiple-Choice Questions

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Each multiple-choice question has four answer choices. Read each question and its answer choices carefully and choose the ONE best answer.

During the test you should try to answer all questions. Even if you are unsure of an answer, it is better to guess than not to answer a question at all. You will NOT be penalized for choosing an incorrect response.

Objective 0001 
Understand the core concepts of technology.

1. A design team for a company that manufactures air-purifying systems has come up with the following design requirements for a new product.

Which of the following design features is best characterized as a constraint?

  1. modern aesthetic design
  2. simple and intuitive controls
  3. uses a HEPA filter and a carbon filter
  4. produces less than 30 decibels of sound
Answer and Rationale. Enter to expand or collapse. Answer expanded
Correct Response: D.
In engineering design, criteria specify the principles or standards by which a product will be judged. Constraints, on the other hand, are limits or restrictions that affect the design. In the example given above, the requirement that the air-purifying system produce less than 30 decibels of sound restricts the size of the system and may require certain design specifications, such as the use of sound insulating materials. The low-noise requirement may also restrict the type of motor, fan, or other components used in the system.

Objective 0002 
Understand the relationship between technology and society, and the history of technology.

2. Which of the following is a feature of the process of innovation that distinguishes it from the process of invention?

  1. application of recent scientific discoveries to create new products and processes
  2. use of computer-aided tools to design and manufacture products for a global market
  3. encouragement of organizations to dedicate more resources to basic research and development
  4. improvement or enhancement of features and uses of existing products and systems
Answer and Rationale. Enter to expand or collapse. Answer expanded
Correct Response: D.
In engineering, the term invention refers to design work that results in something new or novel; innovation refers to improving or enhancing existing products, systems, or processes.

Objective 0002 
Understand the relationship between technology and society, and the history of technology.

3. The initial concerns that drove the development of nuclear technology in the 1940s that was eventually used in nuclear power plants are best described as:

  1. political.
  2. cultural.
  3. market.
  4. environmental.
Answer and Rationale. Enter to expand or collapse. Answer expanded
Correct Response: A.
The first nuclear reactor was built in Chicago to facilitate the development of the atomic bomb during World War II. The development of nuclear technology was funded almost entirely by the  U S  government, first in the race to develop nuclear fission as a weapon to win the war, and later as this country engaged in a nuclear arms race with the  U S S R.  The basic research conducted to develop nuclear weapons was put to peaceful use in building nuclear reactors to produce electricity. Thus, the initial development of nuclear technology was driven by political goals.

Objective 0003 
Understand interrelationships between technologies and between technology and other fields of study.

4. Use the information below to answer the question that follows.

diagram of treatment process where limestone slurry is shown to flow in from a shower at the top, waste gas input comes in from a pipe on the left that flows upward, mixes with the limestone spray, and exits through a pipe on the right as clean gas output, and calcium sulfate flows out through the bottom

The diagram demonstrates a process for treating waste sulfur dioxide (S O subscript 2) from the combustion of coal. The waste gas is mixed with a slurry containing limestone (C lower a C O subscript 3). A series of chemical reactions occurs in which calcium sulfate (C lower a S O subscript 4) is produced. After the calcium sulfate, which is commonly known as gypsum and used to make drywall, is separated out, the remaining gas is mostly water vapor. This process can remove 95 percent of the sulfur dioxide produced in a coal-fired power plant.

This technology is designed to address which of the following environmental problems?

  1. ozone layer depletion
  2. soil pollution
  3. acid rain
  4. climate change
Answer and Rationale. Enter to expand or collapse. Answer expanded
Correct Response: C.
When sulfur dioxide (S O subscript 2) is released high into the atmosphere it is first oxidized to produce sulfur trioxide (S O subscript 3). Sulfur trioxide reacts with water to become an aqueous solution of sulfuric acid (H subscript 2 S O subscript 4). When clouds are present, sulfur dioxide dissolves in water and undergoes a series of reactions that also produce sulfuric acid. Sulfuric acid lowers the pH, or acidity, of precipitation, leading to acid rain or snow. The major source of atmospheric sulfur dioxide is the use of high-sulfur coal in coal-burning power plants.

Objective 0004 
Understand the attributes of design and the design process.

5. A technology education teacher has a project-based design class. While students are engaged in the conceptual design process, the teacher runs several activities to develop students' ability to be imaginative and generate novel and elegant design solutions. Throughout the process, the teacher works to create a classroom climate in which divergent thinking is supported. This teaching strategy most strongly indicates that the teacher understands the importance of:

  1. incorporating ideas about the relationship between technology and society into design.
  2. explicitly instructing students about aspects of creativity and creative problem solving.
  3. aligning students' cultural perspectives with the types of projects they are given to work on.
  4. emphasizing to students that product quality needs to be attended to throughout the design process.
Answer and Rationale. Enter to expand or collapse. Answer expanded
Correct Response: B.
Creativity is an important requirement for the design process. For a project such as the one described, creative thinking on the part of the students involved is a necessity. The teacher recognizes this and ensures that the students understand the importance of creative thinking in design, that they are encouraged to express their creative opinions freely, and that they are given activities that will help generate the tools and mindset that they will need to think creatively during the process.

Objective 0004 
Understand the attributes of design and the design process.

6. Several middle grades students have created the following design brief.

We plan to build a carrying case for a small dog. The case will have a rigid bottom, but the sides and top will be made out of a flexible material. The case will have handles and will need to be sturdy enough to support the weight of the dog with a safety factor of two. The case will need to have plenty of ventilation and also have enough room so the dog will be safe and comfortable. The carrying case should look really nice so people will want to use it in public.

Which of the following strategies would be the most appropriate next step for implementing this design?

  1. brainstorming ideas for the kinds of materials that could be used
  2. conducting research to gather additional data and information
  3. creating a perspective drawing to facilitate developing the conceptual design
  4. building a full-scale mock-up using cardboard and nylon screening
Answer and Rationale. Enter to expand or collapse. Answer expanded
Correct Response: B.
The students have completed step one of the design process: define the problem. They now need to move on to step two: do background research. They should do background research on the types of carrying cases already available, why sides should be rigid or flexible, how to best ventilate the case without weakening the structure, what kind of materials would be best to use, and other questions about the requirements for building such a product.

Objective 0005 
Understand how to apply the design process

7. Students are designing a wind turbine power-generating system. While researching the power generated by a wind turbine, they come across the following formula.

P equals 0.59 times one half rho v cubed times A

where P equals the power generated by the windmill, rho equals the density of air, v equals the wind speed, and A equals the area of the wind turbine. According to this formula, if the wind speed doubles, the power generated will increase by a factor of:

  1. 2.
  2. 3.
  3. 8.
  4. 9.
Answer and Rationale. Enter to expand or collapse. Answer expanded
Correct Response: C.
Since the wind speed in the formula is v cubed if the wind speed doubles it will be 2 v cubed Since 2 cubed is 2 times 2 times 2 equals 8, the power generated will increase by a factor of 8.

Objective 0006 
Understand how to use and maintain technological products and systems.

8. A service technician is diagnosing a clothes dryer that won't start. The user manual provides the following information.

"The clothes dryer will not start if the thermal fuse is faulty. If the fuse is faulty, a continuity tester will indicate an open switch."

The technician removes the fuse from the dryer and uses a multimeter to test the component. The multimeter should be set to make which of the following types of measurements?

  1. current
  2. voltage
  3. resistance
  4. capacitance
Answer and Rationale. Enter to expand or collapse. Answer expanded
Correct Response: C.
An open switch represents a break in a circuit that interrupts the flow of electrons from the power source to the appliance. For example, toggling a wall switch to the open position will break the connection between a lamp and the electrical outlet and turn off the lamp. A multimeter is an instrument that is designed to measure electric current, voltage, and resistance. Since the fuse is removed from the circuit, there will be no current flowing through it or voltage differences to measure. What the multimeter can determine is the degree of resistance of the fuse, and from this measurement determine if it is the cause of the open switch.

Objective 0007 
Understand medical, agricultural, and bio-related technologies.

9. In which of the following ways does the use of a vaccine impact an individual's health?

  1. A vaccine fights infection by destroying dangerous microbes acquired from the environment.
  2. A vaccine fights infection by correcting abnormally low levels of natural body vitamins.
  3. A vaccine treats infection by alleviating the symptoms associated with a disease.
  4. A vaccine prevents infection by using biological agents to build up the immune system.
Answer and Rationale. Enter to expand or collapse. Answer expanded
Correct Response: D.
In the body, antibodies are part of the immune system's first line of defense against a pathogen. Antibodies are formed by the immune system to recognize and bind with proteins, called antigens, on the surface of viruses or bacteria, thus destroying the pathogen. Vaccines consist of live and weakened pathogens, killed pathogens, or parts of a pathogen that contain an antigen. The immune system recognizes the antigen as foreign and produces antibodies that continue to circulate through the bloodstream. If a pathogen with the same antigen invades, the body is already primed with antibodies against it, and genes have been activated to make large quantities of the antibody quickly to eliminate the pathogen before it can multiply.

Objective 0007 
Understand medical, agricultural, and bio-related technologies.

10. A large dairy farm would most appropriately use an anaerobic digester as a major component in a system to:

  1. clean and filter water from a lake or pond.
  2. convert manure to methane gas.
  3. mix feed to prepare livestock food rations.
  4. birth and nurture newborn calves.
Answer and Rationale. Enter to expand or collapse. Answer expanded
Correct Response: B.
Anaerobic lagoons are commonly used in confined feeding operations for raising livestock. For example, pigs are often raised in houses with slotted floors and the manure they produce is regularly washed into holding tanks and piped into a lagoon, or pond, with an impermeable bottom to prevent leaching into the soil. Once in the lagoon, the manure is digested by anaerobic bacteria, unless an aerator is used to add oxygen to the manure slurry and spur aerobic digestion. Anaerobic bacteria convert the nitrogen in manure into ammonia and methane, which are released as gases, although methane may be captured from a covered lagoon and burned to heat outbuildings.

Objective 0008 
Understand energy and power technologies.

11. Use the table below to answer the question that follows.

Output from Solar Panel
Resistor
(ohms) 		Voltage
(volts) 		Current
(amperes)
open circuit 30 0
100 28 0.3
50 24 0.5
25 20 1
5 1 1.1
short circuit 0 1.2

The power output from a solar panel depends on the resistance of the electrical load. A solar panel is exposed to a constant light source and the voltage and current produced were measured for various loads. These values are shown in the table. For which resistive load is the power production maximum (P = VI)?

  1. 00 ohms
  2. 50 ohms
  3. 25 ohms
  4. 5 ohms
Answer and Rationale. Enter to expand or collapse. Answer expanded
Correct Response: C.
Power production is equal to VI, where V is the voltage and I is the current in amperes. Using this formula, the power production for a resistance of 25 ohms is 20 times 1 equals 20 watts. This is higher than any other quantity of power for the other resistance figures given in the table.

Objective 0009 
Understand information and communication technologies.

12. Which of the following electrical components could be used to generate light for a fiber-optic communication system?

  1. variable capacitor symbol
  2. inductor symbol
  3. alternating system symbol
  4. light-emitting diode symbol
Answer and Rationale. Enter to expand or collapse. Answer expanded
Correct Response: D.
There are a number of devices that emit light when electric currents are passed through them. For example, fluorescent lights use current passing through a mercury vapor, while an incandescent light uses high resistance filaments, such as tungsten, that emit light when a current heats it to a high temperature. A light-emitting diode (L E D) is a simple semiconductor device that emits light when electrons (current) are passed through it. L E Ds have the advantage of being cooler than incandescent lights and are able to produce brighter lights from smaller devices. The symbol for a light-emitting diode is given in response D.

Objective 0010 
Understand transportation technologies.

13. Which of the following technology sectors relies most heavily on nonvehicular, continuous-flow transportation systems for transporting its product?

  1. natural gas
  2. newspaper
  3. semiconductor
  4. home building
Answer and Rationale. Enter to expand or collapse. Answer expanded
Correct Response: A.
In the energy technology sector, coal, gasoline, biomass, and nuclear material are usually transported by train or truck. Oil may be transported by truck or pipeline, but natural gas is usually transported primarily by pipeline, which is a non-vehicular, continuous-flow transportation system.

Objective 0011 
Understand manufacturing technologies.

14. Which of the following is an example of manufacturing a product using a forming process?

  1. making a combination wrench with a hammer forge
  2. cutting a scroll for a furniture piece using a jigsaw
  3. fabricating a generator turbine using a milling machine
  4. smoothing the surface of a camshaft with a grinder
Answer and Rationale. Enter to expand or collapse. Answer expanded
Correct Response: A.
Forming processes in manufacturing make use of suitable stresses (e.g., compression, tension, shear, or combinations thereof) to cause deformation of materials to produce required shapes. During forming processes, no material is removed but material is deformed and displaced. A hammer forge deforms material to produce a shape, while all other choices involve cutting or otherwise removing material.

Objective 0011 
Understand manufacturing technologies.

15. In programmable manufacturing machine equipment, a servomotor is used for which of the following purposes?

  1. precisely controlling the angular or linear position of a tool
  2. spinning a workpiece at a high rate of speed for machining
  3. producing constant speed for an assembly line track
  4. providing sufficient pressure for a hydraulic actuator
Answer and Rationale. Enter to expand or collapse. Answer expanded
Correct Response: A.
A manufacturing system is said to be automated if it is, to some degree, self-acting, self-regulating, and self-dependent. There are two types of automated manufacturing systems: fixed and programmable. Fixed systems use specialized equipment to perform specialized operations. In programmable systems the processing sequence and the type of operation can be altered by computer software. In a programmable system, a servomotor consists of a motor, a sensor for positive feedback, and a drive. The drive uses positive feedback to precisely control the angle of the motor. Thus, a servomotor is used to precisely control the angular or linear position of a tool.

Objective 0012 
Understand construction technologies.

16. Use the information below to answer the question that follows.

While building a residential home, a carpenter installs the subfloor over the floor joists on the first-floor level. The carpenter next builds the walls and sheaths them with plywood. The floor joists for the second level are then installed, the subfloor is built, and the second-floor walls are added. Finally, the roof rafters and the roofing are added.

Which of the following types of frame construction is described above?

  1. timber
  2. platform
  3. truss
  4. balloon
Answer and Rationale. Enter to expand or collapse. Answer expanded
Correct Response: B.
In platform framing, the weight of the house is transmitted through relatively small and closely spaced studs, usually 2 by 4s or 2 by 6s, in the walls. Each studwall is only one story high, and rests upon the subfloor covering the studwall beneath it. The roof rafters rest on the top of the final studwall. In contrast, studs in balloon framing run from the ground up to the roof rafters, as do the timbers in a timber-framed building. Trusses are specialized structures that are used to support a rafter or beam that must span a wide distance.

Objective 0012 
Understand construction technologies.

17. Use the diagram below to answer the question that follows.

A bookshelf with 3 shelves, a solid base and a solid top, with dotted lines indicating it tilts approximately 15 degrees to the right.

After building a bookshelf, students notice that it moves to the left and right as indicated in the diagram. To correct the problem, the students decide to add bracing. This solution will correct deformation of the structure due to which of the following forces?

  1. shear
  2. torsion
  3. compression
  4. tension
Answer and Rationale. Enter to expand or collapse. Answer expanded
Correct Response: A.
Shear forces are often unaligned forces that push one part of a structure in one direction and another part of a structure in another direction. In the case of the bookshelf illustrated above, the shear force is pushing the top of the bookshelf to the right and the bottom of the bookshelf to the left. In contrast, a compression force is aligned parallel to the long axis of a support, such as a beam, and tends to compress or squash the support. Tension forces act in opposite directions to pull the beam or structure apart, while torsional forces are twisting forces around a central axis.

Objective 0013 
Understand effective pedagogical practices when planning, delivering, and assessing student learning.

18. In an eighth-grade engineering design class students are working in groups of three for a capstone project that results in the creation of a prototype. As part of the assessment for the project, the teacher has students document their work at each stage of the project. The documentation must include topics such as a summary of brainstorming results, alternative designs, and problems students encountered and how they solved them. Which of the following is the most significant advantage of using this type of assessment?

  1. It can be quickly and reliably scored using a checklist for each step.
  2. It includes a focus on the process used to create the design.
  3. It places the greatest emphasis on the performance of the final design.
  4. It allows the teacher to give a distinct, individual score to each team member.
Answer and Rationale. Enter to expand or collapse. Answer expanded
Correct Response: B.
The most significant advantage of using a documentation of the process in assessing students is in ensuring that they followed the sequential steps in the design process from defining the problem to creating a prototype. It also allows the teacher to understand what problems or issues confronted the students and how they chose to resolve them.

Objective 0014 
Understand the process of reading, and apply knowledge of strategies for promoting students' reading development in the technology education classroom.

19. An informational text uses many signal or transition words and phrases, such as thus, if ... then, so that, as a result, and therefore. These transition words suggest that the text is most likely organized according to which of the following text structures?

  1. descriptive
  2. cause/effect
  3. chronological
  4. comparison/contrast
Answer and Rationale. Enter to expand or collapse. Answer expanded
Correct Response: B.
Authors use transition words and phrases to link key ideas in a text. Transitions help establish cohesion and coherence in written discourse, which help readers follow the author's argument or logic. Learning to recognize the transition words and phrases that signal a particular text structure is a powerful comprehension tool for students. The transitions thus, if ... then, so that, as a result, and therefore all indicate a causal relationship between ideas; thus, a text that includes all these transition words and phrases follows a cause/effect text structure.

Objective 0014 
Understand the process of reading, and apply knowledge of strategies for promoting students' reading development in the technology education classroom.

20. A technology education teacher would like to introduce a few key words from a text that students will be reading. The words represent new concepts for the students. Which of the following instructional strategies would be most effective for the teacher to use first to introduce the new vocabulary?

  1. encouraging students to draw a simple picture to represent each new word
  2. having students write the definition of each new word in their class notebooks
  3. relating each new word to a concept that is familiar to students and then building on their prior knowledge
  4. reading aloud sections of the text that contain the new words and having students underline the words as they read along
Answer and Rationale. Enter to expand or collapse. Answer expanded
Correct Response: C.
Vocabulary knowledge and concept development are closely interrelated; discipline-specific vocabulary development involves concept learning, while concept learning supports academic vocabulary development. To introduce students to vocabulary words that represent new concepts, the teacher needs to begin developing their relevant conceptual understanding. Research has shown that using students' prior knowledge as a foundation for learning is an effective strategy for teaching new concepts.