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No problem! I just reset you.
Ah! It’s got different settings than other exams, so I will have to reset it manually so you can retake it. Are you ready now?
June 5, 2019 at 10:56 am in reply to: Basic Electricity: Series and Parallel Circuits – Path of Least Resistance #15973No apologizes necessary! Sometimes we have to look at things from various directions in order to get it to finally click in. Learning is a process. When I was helping Scott put this course together, you should have heard all the different questions I asked him so that I could figure this stuff out (made for exciting dinner conversations!)
Does this mean that if we have parallel circuits, and one of the paths does not have a load – that electrons will not move through all the paths? Would the one path without a load act as a shunt?
Yes. That’s what a shunt is – a path with no load that is parallel to one or more paths that do have loads. Circuits are often designed with shunts that have a switch in them in order to control another load. If the switch is closed, then the shunt will prevent current going through a load. Then if the switch opens, the current will instead go through the load(s).
Let me know if you have any further questions about that.
Now I’ll ask you one more thing – do you know the difference between a shunt and a short?
Hi James,
I’ve reset you. If you should need another reset in the future, please use our Quiz & Exam Reset Request form (under “contact us” in the main menu). That will get your request to the proper person more quickly!
June 5, 2019 at 8:45 am in reply to: Basic Electricity: Series and Parallel Circuits – Path of Least Resistance #15968Hi Nate,
Great question! Yeah, that “path of least resistance” saying is problematic. It’s sort of correct, but not completely, which is why we don’t like it.
First of all:
And how does electricity know to follow the path of the shunt?
Remember that electrons don’t “know” anything. Fortunately for us, they don’t do independent thinking, and therefore follow consistent and predictable patterns 😉
Electrons will move in response to the presence of voltage if they have a complete circuit. When there are multiple paths available (parallel circuits), and if each path has a load in it, then electrons will move through all of those paths.
If the resistances are different in each of those parallel paths, then that will affect how much current each path gets. Lower resistance will result in higher current flow. (I = E/R, so as R gets smaller, I gets larger), and vice versa. But they’ll all have some flow, even if one of the resistances is significantly higher than the others. (This is why the “path of least resistance” saying is problematic – it sounds like all the current will flow in the path with lower resistance.)
A shunt is a pathway with zero resistance. In this circumstance, ALL of the electrons will go through this path, none will go through the circuits with loads, and we call it a shunt.
Does that help?
Hi Robert,
He is correct that the shunt bypasses loads D, E, and F. When the electrons come to that tie point on either side of the parallel loads, they can either go through one of the loads or go through the shunt wire – they are all tied together. If electrons have a route that they can take with no load in it, then they’ll take it 100% of the time!
70 ohms is the total resistance.
What is your second calculation? You gave the answer in “ohms”. Is that what you meant?
With calculations like this, it is good to write out the units and what you are trying to calculate, so that you can keep everything straight.
Hi Matthew,
The Final exam does not change like the Module exams do, which should make it easy to improve your score. I’m glad that you got over a 90% on your first attempt, though!
For Part 2, there are two attempts. It is open answer, so you have to wait for us to grade your first attempt, then you’ll get an email discussing your results (like you did with the Midterm).
As for study hints, the questions are all drawn directly from the course material, and are often similar to (or exactly the same as) some of the quiz questions. We ask for definitions, explanations, and some calculations.
Good luck!
Yes, 2, 3, and 4 are the same series circuit with 3 loads, and we give you the resistances.
Question 2 asks for the total resistance.
You know each individual resistance – how do you find the total? (The word “total” is a big hint.)
Answer that, then we’ll move on to the next question.
May 30, 2019 at 4:48 pm in reply to: How to find voltage drop if I don't know resistance of loads #15932Hi Steve,
Since you are asking about different types of calculations, and some of them are unrelated to this original post, I’m going to move your question to a new topic.
Steve – See the video in this topic: https://my.mastersamuraitech.com/appliance-repair-course-support/student-forums/topic/calculating-equivalent-resistance/
Hello – no, the Final Exam does not include questions from the bonus modules.
Hi Tom,
We don’t have that available, but you can always take a screen shot of any of the slides that you’d like to have on hand.
Hi Tom,
Normally, it would mean rolling it away from the wall so you can reach the back. But, just to make sure I’m giving you the correct answer, where did you see that in the course?
Done!
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