Question: A car is traveling along a straight road. The car starts from rest and reaches a final velocity of 40 m/s in a time of 8 seconds. Calculate the average acceleration of the car during this time interval.

(a) 5 m/s² (b) 10 m/s² (c) 15 m/s² (d) 20 m/s²

Answer:

We can calculate the average acceleration using the formula:

where:

• $a_{avg}$ is the average acceleration,
• $v_f$ is the final velocity,
• $v_0$ is the initial velocity, and
• $t$ is the time taken.

Given: $v_f = 40 \, \text{m/s}$, $v_0 = 0 \, \text{m/s}$, $t = 8 \, \text{s}$.

Substituting the given values into the formula, we have:

Simplifying the expression further, we get:

Dividing, we find:

Therefore, the average acceleration of the car during this time interval is (a) 5 m/s².