Glossary
kinetic energy
Kinetic energy is the energy of motion — the energy an object has because it is moving. It grows with the object's mass, but with the square of its speed.
Kinetic energy is the energy an object has because it is moving — the energy of motion. It depends on the object's mass and on how fast it is going, and the speed matters far more: because the value follows the square of the speed, doubling the speed multiplies the kinetic energy by four, while doubling the mass only doubles it.
That square is the fact these questions are built on. A car traveling at 60 mph carries four times the kinetic energy of the same car at 30 mph, which is why stopping distance climbs so quickly with speed. Two objects of different mass moving at the same speed are compared by mass alone.
Kinetic energy is one half of a pair; the other half is stored energy. A ball held above the ground has potential energy, and letting it fall converts that store into kinetic energy as it drops — which is why a roller coaster is fastest at the bottom of its track and slowest at the top, and why every question about a falling object is a question about that conversion.
Taught in
Related terms
- potential energy — Potential energy is stored energy — the energy an object has because of its position or its condition, the way a raised weight or a stretched spring has energy waiting to be released.
Source: Official ASVAB — subtest descriptions (what each subtest asks) and the CAT-ASVAB scored-question counts (accessed 2026-09)