Question 2
A man rides a motorcycle 12 km due east and later 5 km due south. Calculate the:
- total distance covered;
- magnitude of the displacement of the man.
This was another popular question and part (b) was fairly well attempted. Candidates are expected to recognize the relevance of direction to vector addition and irrelevance of direction to scalar addition.
Many candidates could not distinguish between which concept (scalar or vector) to apply in solving part (a) or (b) appropriately. So they either skipped part (a) to attempt part (b) or vice versa.
