Consider a toy car which can move to the right or left along a horizontal line (the positive part of the distance axis) and a force applied to that car. Which force would allow the car to move toward the right (away from the origin) with a steady rate (constant velocity)?
Assume friction is so small that it can be ignored.

Is a  vector quantity  that refers to "the rate at which an object changes its position." imagine a person moving rapidly - one step forward and one step back - always returning to the original starting position. while this might result in a frenzy of activity, it would result in a zero velocity. because the person always returns to the original position, the motion would never result in a change in position. since velocity is defined as the rate at which the position changes, this motion results in zero velocity. if a person in motion wishes to maximize their velocity, then that person must make every effort to maximize the amount that they are displaced from their original position. every step must go into moving that person further from where he or she started. for certain, the person should never change directions and begin to return to the starting position.

It really doesn't matter for any of the questions that you've listed.

The chemical reactions lab we did is typically called a "copper plating lab,  because the acid solution cleaned the pennies and made the copper look shinier;   the acid solution cleaned the paperclips and made them look like pennies;   &   the copper from the pennies was removed, and then added to the paperclips.