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Test your basic knowledge |
SAT Subject Test: hysics
Start Test
Study First
Subjects
:
sat
,
science
,
physics
Instructions:
Answer 50 questions in 15 minutes.
If you are not ready to take this test, you can
study here
.
Match each statement with the correct term.
Don't refresh. All questions and answers are randomly picked and ordered every time you load a test.
This is a study tool. The 3 wrong answers for each question are randomly chosen from answers to other questions. So, you might find at times the answers obvious, but you will see it re-enforces your understanding as you take the test each time.
1. The force that binds protons and neutrons together in the atomic nucleus.
Strong nuclear force
Compression
Thermal equilibrium
Angular displacement
2. An experiment by Ernest Rutherford that proved for the first time that atoms have nuclei.
Gold foil experiment
Weak nuclear force
Frequency
Concave lens
3. A nuclear reaction that takes place only at very high temperatures. Two light atoms - often hydrogen - fuse together to form a larger single atom - releasing a vast amount of energy in the process.
Electric generator
Inversely proportional
Nuclear fusion
Principal axis
4. The angle between a reflected ray and the normal.
Nucleus
Fundamental
Collision
Angle of reflection
5. With spherical mirrors - the radius of the sphere of which the mirror is a part.
Hypotenuse
Radius of curvature
Simple harmonic oscillator
Sound
6. The speed at which a wave crest or trough propagates. Note that this is not the speed at which the actual medium (like the stretched string or the air particles) moves.
Vector
Constant of proportionality
Angle of incidence
Wave speed
7. The property by which a charge moving in a magnetic field creates an electric field.
Electromagnetic induction
Electronvolt
Charles's Law
Tension force
8. The square of the amplitude of a sound wave is called the sound's loudness - or volume.
Tail
Reflection
Latent heat of sublimation
Loudness
9. A system that no external net force acts upon. Objects within the system may exert forces upon one another - but they cannot receive any impulse from outside forces. Momentum is conserved in isolated systems.
Coefficient of static friction
Isolated system
Nucleus
Angular position
10. A measure of the average kinetic energy of the molecules in a system. Temperature is related to heat by the specific heat of a given substance.
Radioactivity
Wave
Temperature
Absolute zero
11. Energy associated with an object's position in space - or configuration in relation to other objects. This is a latent form of energy - where the amount of potential energy reflects the amount of energy that potentially could be released as kinetic e
Radioactive decay
Meson
Potential energy
Radioactivity
12. The process by which a solid turns directly into gas - because it cannot exist as a liquid at a certain pressure.
Electric generator
Mass number
Total internal reflection
Sublimation
13. Energy associated with the state of motion. The translational kinetic energy of an object is given by the equation .
Heat engine
Frictional force
Kinetic energy
Latent heat of vaporization
14. Represented by R = 8.31 J/mol · K - the universal gas constant fits into the ideal gas law so as to relate temperature to the average kinetic energy of gas molecules.
Alpha particle
Universal gas constant
Compression
Crest
15. A device made of two coils - which converts current of one voltage into current of another voltage. In a step-up transformer - the primary coil has fewer turns than the secondary - thus increasing the voltage. In a step-down transformer - the seconda
Transformer
Induced current
Center of curvature
Refraction
16. When dealing with reflection or refraction - the incident ray is the ray of light before it strikes the reflecting or refracting surface.
Speed
Incident ray
Constant of proportionality
Tail
17. The bending of light as it passes from one medium to another. Light refracts toward the normal when going from a less dense medium into a denser medium and away from the normal when going from a denser medium into a less dense medium.
Refraction
Latent heat of sublimation
Convection
Directly proportional
18. A vector quantity - L - that is the rotational analogue of linear momentum. For a single particle - the angular momentum is the cross product of the particle's displacement from the axis of rotation and the particle's linear momentum - . For a rigid
Wave speed
Second Law of Thermodynamics
Frictional force
Angular momentum
19. When a light ray strikes a surface - the angle of incidence is the angle between the incident ray and the normal.
Vector
Faraday's Law
Angular position
Angle of incidence
20. A force caused by the roughness of two materials in contact - deformations in the materials - and a molecular attraction between the materials. Frictional forces are always parallel to the plane of contact between two surfaces and opposite the direct
Newton's Second Law
Heat transfer
Vector
Frictional force
21. The joule (J) is the unit of work and energy. A joule is 1 N · m or 1 kg · m2/s2.
Latent heat of fusion
Joule
Unit vector
Mechanical energy
22. Light such that all of the associated waves have the same wavelength and are in phase.
Kinematic equations
Coherent light
Zeroth Law of Thermodynamics
Activity
23. A small particle-like bundle of electromagnetic radiation.
Sublimation
Dot product
Elastic collision
Photon
24. The emf created by the motion of a charge through a magnetic field.
Electronvolt
Internal energy
Kinetic friction
Motional emf
25. The center of an atom - where the protons and neutrons reside. Electrons then orbit this nucleus.
Coefficient of kinetic friction
Melting point
Snell's Law
Nucleus
26. An equation - PV = nRT - that relates the pressure - volume - temperature - and quantity of an ideal gas. An ideal gas is one that obeys the approximations laid out in the kinetic theory of gases.
Tension force
Loudness
Ideal gas law
Decay constant
27. The points of maximum negative displacement along a wave. They are the opposite of wave crests.
Collision
Orbit
Mutual Induction
Trough
28. If two systems - A and B - are in thermal equilibrium and if B and C are also in thermal equilibrium - then systems A and C are necessarily in thermal equilibrium.
Conduction
Transformer
Zeroth Law of Thermodynamics
Rarefaction
29. The gravitational force exerted on a given mass.
Decay constant
Weight
Orbit
Angular frequency
30. A wave that interferes with its own reflection so as to produce oscillations which stand still - rather than traveling down the length of the medium. Standing waves on a string with both ends tied down make up the harmonic series.
Superposition
Rotational kinetic energy
Angle of incidence
Standing wave
31. For two given media - the smallest angle of incidence at which total internal reflection occurs.
Critical angle
Directly proportional
Gravitational constant
Angular momentum
32. Another word for the frequency of a sound wave.
Pitch
Equilibrium position
Tension force
Power
33. The stable position of a system where the net force acting on the object is zero.
Third Law of Thermodynamics
Equilibrium position
Amplitude
Entropy
34. With spherical mirrors - the center of the sphere of which the mirror is a part. All of the normals pass through it.
Radioactive decay
Center of curvature
Alpha particle
Angular acceleration
35. The substance that is displaced as a wave propagates through it. Air is the medium for sound waves - the string is the medium of transverse waves on a string - and water is the medium for ocean waves. Note that even if the waves in a given medium tra
Mutual Induction
Boiling point
Medium
Directly proportional
36. A rigid body's resistance to being rotated. The moment of inertia for a single particle is MR2 - where M is the mass of the rigid body and R is the distance to the rotation axis. For rigid bodies - calculating the moment of inertia is more complicate
Electron
Conduction
Moment of inertia
Cycle
37. A form of vector multiplication - where two vectors are multiplied to produce a scalar. The dot product of two vectors - A and B - is expressed by the equation A · B = AB cos .
Dot product
Specific heat
Hertz (Hz)
Third Law of Thermodynamics
38. When objects collide - each object feels a force for a short amount of time. This force imparts an impulse - or changes the momentum of each of the colliding objects. The momentum of a system is conserved in all kinds of collisions. Kinetic energy is
Induced current
Completely inelastic collision
Newton's Third Law
Collision
39. The position - of an object according to a co-ordinate system measured in s of the angle of the object from a certain origin axis. Conventionally - this origin axis is the positive x-axis.
Legs
Conduction
Angular position
Oscillation
40. The principle by which the displacements from different waves traveling in the same medium add up. Superposition is the basis for interference.
Inelastic collision
Superposition
Photon
Phase
41. In an interference or diffraction pattern - the places where there is the least light.
Decay constant
Vertex
Centripetal force
Minima
42. The energy of a particle moving in space. It is defined in s of a particle's mass - m - and velocity - v - as (1/2)mv2.
Total internal reflection
Reflect
Translational kinetic energy
Michelson-Morley experiment
43. A transfer of thermal energy. We don't speak about systems "having" heat - but about their "transferring" heat - much in the way that dynamical systems don't "have" work - but rather "do" work.
Heat
Total internal reflection
Torque
Mass
44. In the Bohr model of the atom - the state in which an electron has the least energy and orbits closest to the nucleus.
Snell's Law
Hertz (Hz)
Ground state
Melting point
45. An object that moves about a stable equilibrium point and experiences a restoring force that is directly proportional to the oscillator's displacement.
Simple harmonic oscillator
Focal point
Newton's Second Law
Phase
46. Also called a diverging lens - a lens that is thinner in the middle than at the edges. Concave lenses refract light away from a focal point.
Momentum
Concave lens
Electron
Significant digits
47. A form of radioactivity where an excited atom releases a photon of gamma radiation - thereby returning to a lower energy state. The atomic structure itself does not change in the course of gamma radiation.
Gamma decay
Mass
Photon
Coefficient of static friction
48. In a right triangle - the sine of a given angle is the length of the side opposite the angle divided by the length of the hypotenuse.
Pendulum
Sine
Electromagnetic wave
Rotational motion
49. The amount heat necessary to cause a substance to undergo a phase transition.
Latent heat of transformation
Completely inelastic collision
Refraction
Torque
50. A vector of magnitude 1 along one of the coordinate axes. Generally - we take the basis vectors to be and - the vectors of length 1 along the x- and y-axes - respectively.
Doppler shift
Snell's Law
Trough
Basis vector