Question 11 - Science Practice Test for the HiSET Test

The water cycle describes how the Earth’s water moves between various areas of storage, such as the ocean, the atmosphere, or glaciers. These areas of storage, where water collects and may stay for a long or short amount of time, are also called reservoirs. Water can stay in a reservoir in any of its three forms, solid (ice), liquid (water), or gas (vapor). There are many processes, such as evaporation, precipitation, and runoff, that move water from one reservoir to another. Figure 1 provided shows the distribution of water by percentage among Earth’s water reservoirs, and figure 2 shows an illustration of the water cycle, where the arrows are the various processes that move water between reservoirs.