Study Guide

Physical Education
Sample Questions

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Competency 0001
Understand principles of motor development and efficient human movement.

1. In the context of motor learning, the concept of readiness refers to the:

  1. combination of maturation and experience that allows an individual to learn and acquire a new motor skill.
  2. ability of an individual to adjust motor behaviors easily to the changing demands of a motor learning environment.
  3. capacity of human biology, as in neural and bone development, to reorganize and respond to a motor challenge or injury.
  4. interplay of environmental factors that results in favorable or ideal conditions in which to learn a new motor skill.
Enter to expand or collapse answer.Answer expanded
Correct Response: A. The concept of readiness relates to factors that affect an individual's ability to acquire a motor skill. Readiness is primarily determined by the biological maturity of the learner (the learner's level of physical growth and motor development) and the learner's experience (the way in which practice conditions and the motor learning environment affect how the skill is learned). According to motor learning principles, when a motor learning activity is appropriate for the physical, cognitive, and emotional development of students and environmental conditions are favorable, learners will gain proficiency in new motor skills.

Competency 0002
Understand movement concepts and fundamental movement skills.

2. In an elementary physical education class, each student stands in a hoop placed on the floor and creates a self-space exercise sequence that includes bending, stretching, balancing, and swaying from a stationary base of support. As students practice their exercise sequences, the teacher helps them name the muscles and joints used in the movements. The teacher invites students to make up names for the movements they perform based on the body parts used. Which of the following learning outcomes is this activity most likely designed to promote?

  1. Demonstrate the ability to perform one-, two-, and three-part base balances.
  2. Demonstrate safety skills and awareness of others while performing manipulative skills in a group setting.
  3. Recognize how nonlocomotor skills contribute to improved health and an active lifestyle.
  4. Explore how weight transfer skills contribute to efficient motor performance in a variety of locomotor activities.
Enter to expand or collapse answer.Answer expanded
Correct Response: C. A self-space exercise that involves bending, stretching, balancing, and swaying from a stationary base of support requires students to use nonlocomotor skills. By helping students identify and name the muscles and joints used in their exercises, the teacher fosters students' understanding of components of the muscular and skeletal systems, ways in which the body moves, and the health benefits of flexibility activities that engage muscles and move joints through their range of motion. Nonlocomotor activities such as the one described also promote kinesthetic awareness; development of fitness attributes needed for an active lifestyle, such as coordination, balance, and agility; and the ability to execute movements efficiently.

Competency 0003
Understand principles, activities, and techniques for body management, rhythmic movement, and creative expression and dance skills.

3. Parachute play contributes to the development of skills important for rhythmic movement and dance by encouraging students to focus on:

  1. visual clues for recognizing rhythmic components.
  2. shaping movement to mirror the shapes created by others.
  3. the ways in which movement can express a unified idea.
  4. coordinating movement timing with the movement of others.
Enter to expand or collapse answer.Answer expanded
Correct Response: D. In parachute play, students manipulate a nylon parachute as a group, lifting and lowering it to make ripples and domes, and moving clockwise and counterclockwise in a circle while keeping it inflated. These activities, especially when accompanied by counting or a musical cadence, promote students' ability to move in unison and to coordinate the timing and flow of their movements with the movements of others. These skills are transferable to many rhythmic movement and dance activities, including line and social dance, which require participants to move to a rhythm in a synchronized way with others.

Competency 0004
Understand principles, skills, and techniques for individual, dual, and team sports.

4. In the game of volleyball, a "bump" or forearm pass is the most appropriate technique to use to:

  1. spike the ball over the net.
  2. play a ball that arrives low and with force.
  3. receive a ball off the net.
  4. return a ball that arrives at chest height or higher.
Enter to expand or collapse answer.Answer expanded
Correct Response: B. In volleyball, a forearm pass, or "bump," is often used to receive serves and spikes and is recommended for playing a ball that arrives with force below chest level. In the forearm pass, a player extends the arms in front of the body and joins hands, keeping hands and wrists together. The elbows rotate in so that the widest portion of each forearm faces upward. The elbows are locked on contact and the ball is contacted between the wrists and elbows.

Competency 0005
Understand principles, skills, and techniques for outdoor pursuits, recreational activities, and cooperative group games and challenges.

5. The "challenge by choice" principle, originated by Project Adventure, has been incorporated into many challenge- and adventure-based physical education units. This principle centers on the idea that students should:

  1. be able to choose to participate in a high-ropes course before a low-ropes course to increase interest and motivation.
  2. select friends as partners for dual activities and trusted peers as group members or teammates for group activities.
  3. test themselves but have autonomy in determining degree of participation in activities, including the option of declining activities that elicit anxiety.
  4. be encouraged to show support and empathy to their own group or team members but allowed to participate competitively against others if desired.
Enter to expand or collapse answer.Answer expanded
Correct Response: C. The "challenge by choice" principle is based on the premise that students should be encouraged to challenge themselves and invited to participate voluntarily in various activities and challenges in an adventure-based program or unit. However, any student may choose to limit participation or sit out an activity that provokes anxiety or fear and others should honor this decision. This approach helps create a climate in which students' preferences and their capacity to decide what activities best meet their needs are respected. Adhering to the "challenge by choice" principle also helps reinforce the message that students should take personal responsibility for making appropriate choices and behaving ethically and safely in group physical activity settings.

Competency 0006
Understand basic concepts of anatomy and physiology, major components of personal wellness and fitness, and significant factors that influence wellness and fitness, including diverse cultural, economic, and geographic contexts.

6. At the onset of puberty, the hypothalamus signals the pituitary gland to release growth hormone and stimulate the production of thyroxine. The increase in these two substances, which causes gains in body size and skeletal growth, results primarily from the interaction of which two body systems?

  1. the muscular system and the skeletal system
  2. the nervous system and the endocrine system
  3. the circulatory system and the integumentary system
  4. the respiratory system and the reproductive system
Enter to expand or collapse answer.Answer expanded
Correct Response: B. The brain, part of the central nervous system, houses the hypothalamus, which regulates the endocrine system, including the thyroid and pituitary glands. When thyroxine levels are low, the hypothalamus secretes a releasing hormone that stimulates the pituitary to secrete thyroid stimulating hormone (TSH), which in turn causes the thyroid to secrete thyroxine. Thyroxine stimulates metabolic rate and influences protein production, which affects the growth rate of children. The anterior lobe of the pituitary secretes somatotropin or growth hormone (GH), which stimulates bone and muscle growth.

Competency 0007
Understand principles and activities for promoting cardiorespiratory fitness.

7. High school physical education students are designing activity plans in which they describe strategies for achieving health and wellness goals. One student's plan includes jogging at a steady, moderate pace for 30 to 40 minutes four times per week to lose weight. The teacher suggests that the student incorporate short sprints into the jogging. Implementing this strategy should help the student achieve his or her goal because anaerobic exercise:

  1. burns calories from fat more efficiently and increases overall metabolism.
  2. converts glucose into energy more efficiently than aerobic exercise.
  3. decreases lactate buildup in muscles, thereby eliminating soreness and fatigue.
  4. allows muscles to generate power for longer durations than aerobic exercise.
Enter to expand or collapse answer.Answer expanded
Correct Response: A. Both aerobic and anaerobic exercise results in an increase in body metabolism. But participation in anaerobic activity, which involves working at a very high intensity for a short period of time followed by a rest interval, will boost body metabolism a good deal more and for a longer duration than participation in a moderately paced aerobic activity. Aerobic exercise tends to burn carbohydrates first, whereas high-intensity exercise such as sprinting burns a greater percentage of fat, enhances the body's production of enzymes that aid in fat breakdown, and activates pathways that lead to muscle development. One key to achieving optimum fitness results is to design a workout that incorporates both aerobic and anaerobic conditioning. Aerobic exercise increases endurance and cardiac health, while anaerobic exercise helps burn fat and increase lean muscle mass.

Competency 0008
Understand principles and activities for promoting muscular strength and endurance and muscular and joint flexibility.

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


In the exercise shown, the student's arm is down to the side with the hand slightly behind the body for support. The other arm extends overhead and reaches to the opposite side. The stretch is held briefly. The student repeats the movement with the other arm. This stretch targets which of the following muscles?

  1. biceps
  2. erector spinae
  3. gluteus maximus
  4. latissimus dorsi
Enter to expand or collapse answer.Answer expanded
Correct Response: D. The latissimus dorsi, a wide powerful muscle, arises from the lower vertebral column, covers the lower back, and runs from the side of the trunk to the humerus. The action of the latissimus dorsi draws the upper arm downward and backward and rotates it inward. In the flexibility exercise illustrated, the participant stretches one arm overhead while bending at the waist in the same direction, thereby stretching the side of the trunk where the latissimus dorsi is located. To stretch the other latissimus dorsi, the participant switches arms to stretch the other side of the trunk.

Competency 0009
Understand strategies and activities for promoting healthy levels of body composition and the skills needed to develop personal health and physical activity plans.

9. In a health and wellness unit, middle school students learn about healthy levels of body composition and factors that affect body composition. Students are asked to develop a personal wellness plan to improve or maintain body composition. Which of the following approaches would best support students in creating their own personal wellness plans?

  1. familiarizing students with online tools (e.g., The President's Challenge Web site, the USDA's Super Tracker) that can help them evaluate, plan, and track their diet and physical activity
  2. encouraging students to use dietary and physical activity analysis software to determine baseline data for average daily caloric intake and expenditures
  3. advising students to review Web sites associated with popular fitness plans to compare approaches and learn how to incorporate healthy eating and physical activity patterns into daily life
  4. introducing students to technology and procedures for calculating and measuring body composition (e.g., body mass formulas and index tables, body mass scales)
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Correct Response: A. A number of reliable and useful Web sites sponsored by nonprofit and government organizations would support students in creating personal wellness plans. Several offer online tools for assessing body composition and health strengths and needs, as well as for incorporating nutritional and physical activity recommendations according to age, gender, and activity level into personal wellness plans. The President's Challenge programs include the Presidential Youth Fitness Program, a school-based program that promotes health and regular physical activity for U.S. students and offers teachers free access to a health-related assessment for youth fitness; and the PALA+ program, a motivational program for families and individuals of any age who want to make physical activity and healthy eating part of their daily lives. The USDA's Super Tracker, found on the ChooseMyPlate.gov Web site, provides recommendations for daily nutrition and physical activity and helps students identify, analyze, and track dietary and physical activity patterns. The Super Tracker also provides virtual coaching and tools for establishing personal nutrition and physical activity goals and planning and monitoring individualized wellness strategies.

Competency 0010
Understand factors that influence growth, development, and learning and the importance of developing physically literate individuals.

10. Which stage of child development is typically characterized by slow and steady physical growth, refinement of motor skills, and the emergence of the ability to think about health and wellness topics in concrete operational terms?

  1. the early childhood years (ages 2 to 6)
  2. the middle childhood years (ages 6 to 11)
  3. the early adolescent years (ages 11 to 15)
  4. the later adolescent years (ages 15 to 18)
Enter to expand or collapse answer.Answer expanded
Correct Response: B. The middle childhood stage of physical development is characterized by slow, steady growth and improvement and refinement of motor skills. Cognitively, children are said to be in the concrete operational stage, which Piaget defined as the capacity to engage in mental operations or internalized actions that fit into a logical system. Children carry out these mental operations in the presence of the concrete objects and events being thought about.

Use the information below to answer the two questions that follow.

After practicing skills and participating in lead-p activities, students prepare to play team handball on an indoor basketball court in a gymnasium. The teacher reminds students that the game resembles soccer played with the hands and incorporates strategies from soccer, basketball, and hockey. The objective of the game is to score a goal by passing the ball quickly and throwing the ball past the defense and goalie and into the goal. Players are allowed to hold the ball without moving for three seconds, run with the ball for up to three steps before and after dribbles, and dribble the ball for an unlimited amount of time. Only the goalkeepers may occupy the designated area in front of their goals.

Competency 0011
Understand how children and adolescents learn and how to provide them with opportunities that support their psychomotor, cognitive, social, and emotional development.

11. Which of the following additional procedures would best maximize students' participation and promote their use of strategic skills?

  1. having students switch from zone defense to player-to-player defense on the teacher's signal as required by the situation
  2. requiring that each offensive play include three completed passes before a shot on goal
  3. specifying that offensive players use bounce shots rather than set or jump shots on attempts to score
  4. having goalkeepers put the ball into play from center court following goals or defensive blocks
Enter to expand or collapse answer.Answer expanded
Correct Response: B. In a game of team handball, requiring offensive players to complete three passes before shooting on goal necessitates the involvement of more students and increases the complexity of game play, thereby increasing participation and students' awareness and use of tactical skills. This type of modification supports students' social and emotional development by promoting cooperation, teamwork, fairness, and equitable participation by students, while minimizing the likelihood that highly skilled or aggressive students will monopolize the game. It also supports students' cognitive development by prompting students to use critical-thinking and analysis skills to locate open teammates, advance the ball, and elude defenders. The quick skillful movements and split-second strategic decisions that are needed in the game support students' psychomotor development.

Competency 0014
Understand ethical, legal, professional, and safety guidelines and practices in physical education.

12. Which of the following pre-game procedures would be most effective for the teacher to use to help establish and maintain a safe physical education environment in the context of this activity?

  1. reminding the students about the similarities between soccer and team handball and the need for etiquette and safety precautions in both types of activities
  2. emphasizing the dynamic nature of the game and asking students to brainstorm ideas for modifying the game to slow down the pace
  3. walking the perimeter of the court with students and explaining tactics for advancing the ball and defending the goal
  4. discussing with students the rules of play and the inherent risks of playing team handball on an indoor basketball court
Enter to expand or collapse answer.Answer expanded
Correct Response: D. To establish a safe environment and minimize the risk of accidental injuries, the physical education teacher should, prior to the activity, discuss with students the game's inherent risks. Collisions with other players and slipping and falling while running are some of the inherent risks associated with team handball played in a gymnasium. The teacher should also review and enforce rules of play that enhance student safety, such as no bodily contact with others; no kicking the ball; no endangering an opponent with the ball; and no pushing, pulling, or hitting the ball out of someone's hands.

Competency 0012
Understand the relationship between physical activity and the development of responsible personal and social behaviors and traits.

13. A group of six- and seven-year-old students are playing "amoeba tag." In this game, two students join hands and run around together, chasing and trying to tag others. The first two students tagged join hands with the two "amoebas" and form a chain. At this point, the four students split into two groups. Play continues as each group tries to tag students and add them to its chain. Groups may remain as one chain or divide into even-numbered groups. Chains may link together at will. The game continues until all are tagged. Which of the following statements accurately describes a primary advantage of engaging students in this activity?

  1. The activity eliminates risks to students involving accidental collisions or falls.
  2. The activity promotes students' development of problem-solving skills and consensus-building techniques.
  3. The activity prompts students to communicate, cooperate, and use reasoning skills.
  4. The activity helps equalize disparities among students related to individual fitness attributes such as speed and stamina.
Enter to expand or collapse answer.Answer expanded
Correct Response: C. Amoeba tag encourages students to work together in a safe and positive manner. Children in the amoeba chains must communicate with group members and cooperate with group efforts in order to travel together and tag other children. The game prompts children to think about all members of their group, not just themselves, as they move as a group through space and communicate about direction and tactics. The game also encourages children to use reasoning skills in determining when and how to split into smaller even-numbered groups and in developing group strategies for tagging.

Competency 0013
Understand physical education instruction and assessment, including how to adapt instruction and assessment for students with diverse learning needs.

14. In an elementary physical education class, students practice racket skills. They use junior rackets to practice drop serves and forehand strokes against a wall and then with partners. One student who has muscular dystrophy is willing and physically able to participate. In which of the following ways could the teacher most appropriately address this student's needs in the context of this activity?

  1. by building in opportunities for rest breaks during class and allowing the student to practice the skills at his or her own pace
  2. by simplifying directions used to introduce the activity to the class and refraining from providing verbal cues to the student
  3. by providing the student with extra practice time before the main activity and trying to eliminate distractions during the activity
  4. by defining an individual practice space for the student and his or her partner using colored tape or cones for boundaries
Enter to expand or collapse answer.Answer expanded
Correct Response: A. In this situation, adding opportunities for rest breaks during the racket skill activities and allowing the student with muscular dystrophy to practice at his or her own pace will permit the student to participate with other students to the maximum extent possible. By adapting the activity in this way, the teacher addresses the student's individual physical needs and demonstrates sensitivity to the student without singling out the student for attention or separating the student from the rest of the class.