If you pour equal amounts of scalding hot water into different metallic cups of equal temperature, which cup will heat up the most? Rank the cups from hottest to coldest.

Answer: The cup material with a low specific heat capacity will heat more than the cup material with a high specific heat capacity.

Explanation: specific heat capacity is the amount of heat energy required to raise the temperature of one mass of a body.

The specific heat capacity of a substance depends on the amount of heat energy that will increase the temperature of that substance. Therefore if a substance specific heat capacity is low, the amount of heat required to raise the temperature of that substance will be low. When compared to the same amount of heat energy to a body of different specific heat capacity, the body with the lower heat capacity will allow more heat energy to go round it's body, making its body to heat more. The body with high specific heat capacity may not receive enough energy that can go round the body, which will make the body to heat less.

Let's take the cup to be made of iron, zinc and aluminum.

The cup made of zinc will be more hotter, followed by the cup made of aluminum, and then the cup made of iron.