Kaplan Nursing Entrance Exam Practice 2025 – Comprehensive Prep

Acceleration is best described as a change in velocity over time. This encompasses any alteration in how fast an object is moving (speed) and/or the direction in which it is moving. Therefore, acceleration can occur when an object speeds up, slows down, or changes direction while maintaining a consistent speed.

For instance, if a car accelerates from rest to a higher speed, it demonstrates an increase in velocity. Similarly, if the car maintains a constant speed but makes a turn, it is also accelerating due to the change in direction of its travel path. This is pivotal in understanding motion in physics, as acceleration is fundamentally linked to the forces acting upon objects.

The other choices provide different concepts related to motion but do not accurately encapsulate the definition of acceleration. Constant speed refers solely to the rate of distance covered without change over time, while distance divided by time gives the average speed, neither of which captures the dynamic aspect of acceleration. A change in direction happens in movement but does not necessarily imply a change in velocity unless there is a corresponding change in speed as well.