Bennett Mechanical Comprehension Practice Test 2025 – The Complete All-in-One Guide to Exam Success!

The term that describes the force applied to lift a load in a pulley system is "effort." In the context of a pulley system, effort refers to the force exerted by a person or mechanism to move an object, typically against gravity. When utilizing a pulley, the effort is the force applied to the rope or cable used to lift the load.

This relationship is essential to understanding how pulleys operate; they essentially reduce the amount of effort needed to lift a given load by distributing the weight across several segments of rope. When lifting an object directly, you would need to exert enough force to overcome its weight. However, with a pulley system, you can exert less effort since the mechanical advantage allows you to lift the load more efficiently.

In contrast, "weight" corresponds to the gravitational force acting on the load itself, while "load" refers to the actual object being lifted. "Friction" relates to the resistance encountered during the movement of the load, which can affect the efficiency of the lifting process but does not represent the force used to lift the load.