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Case Study 1 - Spherical mirrors

Case Study 1 - Spherical Mirrors

 Read the following passage and answer the questions that follows:

Anyone who has sat in the driver's or passenger's seat in a car has probably noticed the tiny wording, "Objects in mirror are closer than they appear," that runs along the bottom of the passenger-side rear view mirror. Some may question the logic of making objects seem like they are farther away than they actually are, but the reason is that such mirrors give the driver the best range of vision. Curved outwards spherical mirrors are commonly used as rear-view (wing) mirrors in vehicles because they give an erect, virtual, full size diminished image of distant objects with a wider field of view. These mirrors enable the driver to view a much larger area than would be possible with a plane mirror. 


Q1 Which type of mirror is used as a rear-view mirror in automobiles. 

(a) Plane mirror 

(b) Concave mirror 

(c) Convex mirror 

(d) Distorted mirror 


Q2  A bus of height 3m appears as a diminished image in the rear-view mirror of a car. The driver estimated the approximate image size of the bus to be just 3 cm in the mirror. What is the magnification produced by the mirror? 

(a) 1 

(b) 1/100 

(c) 100 

(d) 0.1 


Q3  The radius of curvature of the rear-view mirror is 400 cm. What is its focal length? 

(a) – 2m 

(b) – 400 cm 

(c) – 200 cm 

(d) 200 cm 


Q4 What is the advantage of using a curved-outwards spherical mirror as a rear view mirror? 

(a) it provides a shorter field of view. 

(b) it provides a much wider field of view 

(c) it provides a full size enlarged image 

(d) it provides a real image thus the driver is sure that the image is not fake.


Q5 The rear-view mirror of Sonali’s car was broken. In a hurry, she replaced the broken rear-view mirror with a concave mirror of the same size and focal length of 20 cm. What she would likely to observe in her mirror while driving? 

(a) She would observe no change because it has the same size as the previous one 

(b) She would observe an inverted image of traffic behind her car 

(c) She would observe an enlarged image of traffic behind her car 

(d) She would observe a virtual image of traffic behind her car


To know the answers of above questions, attempt the online test case study 1