The total energy in the universe is constant. Energy can be transformed from one form to another or transferred from the system to the surroundings (or vice versa), but in the end the total amount of this energy remains the same. A bar chart is a useful tool for illustrating how energy is stored, transferred, and conserved.
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You need to do a lot of thinking and a lot of decision-making for this question. First, you need to decide the manner in which energy is stored in the system in the initial state and in the final state. And second, you need to decide if the system interacts with any objects outside of it in order to transfer energy between the system and the surroundings. To make these decisions, you will need to ...

1. Read carefully and picture the situation. Pay attention to small cues within the description of the two states and in the Notes section.
2. Understand the various energy storage modes so that you can identify what energy modes are present in each of the two states. You can read about Energy Storage Modes below.
3. Decide if objects in the system interact with objects outside the system such that a force adds or removes energy from the system. See Energy Transfer Into/Out Of the System below.

Energy Storage Modes

Kinetic Energy (E_K):   Kinetic energy is the energy of motion. If an object is moving , then it has kinetic energy. If an object speeds up between initial and final states, then the final KE is greater than the initial KE. And the opposite is true for a slowing down object.

Gravitational Potential Energy (Eg): Gravitational potential energy is the stored energy of vertical position resulting from the interaction of the Earth and an object. If the system includes the Earth and the object, then it possesses this form of energy.  The amount depends (in part) on height. Objects at higher positions have more Eg than those at lower positions. 

Chemical Energy (ECh):  Chemical energy is the energy stored in chemicals; it's useful to think of this as the energy stored in food or fuel. Fuels like gasoline in a car and carbohydrates in the human body are sources of chemical energy.  If a person is part of the system and is pushing, pulling, jumping, climbing, etc., then the person is using their ECh to affect the motion.

Internal Energy (E_Int): There are lots of names that we could this, but we have chosen internal energy. It is the energy associated with particle (atoms and molecules) vibrating within the objects of the system. These particles always vibrate but sometimes the amount of vibration increases due to the production of sound and heat. So think about the objects within the system and whether or not they are warming up (perhaps due to friction) or producing sound (as a result of a collision).
 

Energy Transfer Into/Out of the System

Energy can be transported to and from a system whenever objects outside the system interact with objects inside the system so as cause or hinder their motion. So focus on the question as to whether any objects outside the system of objects is exerting a force on objects in the system. And if so, does that force do work on an object in the system. That is, does the force cause or hinder a movement. If the object outside the system exerts a force that causes a motion, then that is referred to as positive work (on the system) and adds energy to the system. If an object outside the system exerts a force that hinders a motion, then that is referred to as negative work and removes energy from the system.