What is the term for the distance an object travels per unit of time?

• A. Displacement
• B. Speed
• C. Velocity
• D. Range

Answer: (B)

Speed is the rate at which an object covers distance. It tells you how much distance is traveled in a given amount of time, and it ignores direction. If you only care about how fast something is moving, speed is the quantity you use. Velocity would add direction to that, giving a vector quantity. Displacement is the straight-line distance from the starting point to the current position and can be different from the total distance traveled if the path isn’t straight. Range isn’t the standard term for this everyday idea in basic physics. So the term that matches distance traveled per unit time is speed.