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SAT Subject Test: hysics

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 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.






2. The tendency of an object to remain at a constant velocity - or its resistance to being accelerated. Newton's First Law is alternatively called the Law of Inertia because it describes this tendency.






3. A number - Z - associated with the number of protons in the nucleus of an atom. Every element can be defined in s of its atomic number - since every atom of a given element has the same number of protons.






4. 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.






5. The state of a nonrotating object upon whom the net torque acting is zero.






6. A unit vector is a vector with length 1.






7. A process that aligns a wave of light to oscillate in one dimension rather than two.






8. An object cannot be cooled to absolute zero.






9. There are a few versions of this law. One is that heat flows spontaneously from hot to cold - but not in the reverse direction. Another is that there is no such thing as a 100% efficient heat engine. A third states that the entropy - or disorder - of






10. The straight line that runs through the focal point and the vertex of a mirror or lens.






11. A means of defining the direction of the cross product vector. To define the direction of the vector - position your right hand so that your fingers point in the direction of A - and then curl them around so that they point in the direction of B. Th






12. The property of a vector that distinguishes it from a scalar: while scalars have only a magnitude - vectors have both a magnitude and a direction. When graphing vectors in the xy-coordinate space - direction is usually given by the angle measured cou






13. A device that breaks incoming light down into spectral rays - so that one can see the exact wavelength constituents of the light.






14. A wedge or a slide. The dynamics of objects sliding down inclined planes is a popular topic on SAT II Physics.






15. An almost massless particle of neutral charge that is released along with a beta particle in beta decay.






16. The points midway between nodes on a standing wave - where the oscillations are largest.






17. An image created by a mirror or lens in such a way that light does actually come from where the image appears to be. If you place a screen in front of a real image - the image will be projected onto the screen.






18. A positively charged particle that - along with the neutron - occupies the nucleus of the atom.






19. A vector quantity defined as the product of the force acting on a body multiplied by the time interval over which the force is exerted.






20. States that the net work done on an object is equal to the object's change in kinetic energy.






21. Heat transfer via the mass movement of molecules.






22. The coefficient of static friction - for two materials is the constant of proportionality between the normal force and the maximum force of static friction. It is always a number between zero and one.






23. 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 .






24. A model for the atom developed in 1913 by Niels Bohr. According to this model - the electrons orbiting a nucleus can only orbit at certain particular radii. Excited electrons may jump to a more distant radii and then return to their ground state - em






25. The process by which unstable nuclei spontaneously release particles and/or energy so as to come to a more stable arrangement. The most common forms of radioactive decay are alpha decay - beta decay - and gamma decay.






26. A vector quantity - or vector - is an object possessing - and fully described by - a magnitude and a direction. Graphically a vector is depicted as an arrow with its magnitude given by the length of the arrow and its direction given by where the arro






27. The motion of a body in a circular path with constant speed.






28. The cancellation of one wave by another wave that is exactly out of phase with the first. Despite the dramatic name of this phenomenon - nothing is "destroyed" by this interference—the two waves emerge intact once they have passed each other.






29. The two shorter sides of a right triangle that meet at the right angle.






30. The number of digits that have been accurately measured. When combining several measurements in a formula - the resulting calculation can only have as many significant digits as the measurement that has the smallest number of significant digits.






31. In oscillation - a cycle occurs when an object undergoing oscillatory motion completes a "round-trip." For instance - a pendulum bob released at angle has completed one cycle when it swings to and then back to again. In period motion - a cycle is the






32. 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






33. F = ma. The net force - F - acting on an object causes the object to accelerate - a. The magnitude of the acceleration is directly proportional to the net force on the object and inversely proportional to the mass - m - of the object.

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34. A constant - J · s - which is useful in quantum physics. A second constant associated with Planck's constant is .

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35. The distance between the focal point and the vertex of a mirror or lens. For concave mirrors and convex lenses - this number is positive. For convex mirrors and concave lenses - this number is negative.






36. The ray of light that is reflected from a mirror or other reflecting surface.






37. The line that every particle in the rotating rigid body circles about.






38. The separation of different color light via refraction.






39. The coefficient of kinetic friction - - for two materials is the constant of proportionality between the normal force and the force of kinetic friction. It is always a number between zero and one.






40. The distance between successive wave crests - or troughs. Wavelength is measured in meters and is related to frequency and wave speed by = v/f.






41. A machine that operates by taking heat from a hot place - doing some work with that heat - and then exhausting the rest of the heat into a cool place. The internal combustion engine of a car is an example of a heat engine.






42. Light such that all of the associated waves have the same wavelength and are in phase.






43. The amount of energy that metal must absorb before it can release a photoelectron from the metal.






44. The angle between a refracted ray and the line normal to the surface.






45. The reaction force of the ground - a table - etc. - when an object is placed upon it. The normal force is a direct consequence of Newton's Third Law: when an object is placed on the ground - the ground pushes back with the same force that it is pushe






46. If the net torque acting on a rigid body is zero - then the angular momentum of the body is constant or conserved.






47. The number of cycles executed by a system in one second. Frequency is the inverse of period - f = 1/T. Frequency is measured in hertz - Hz.






48. The energy associated with the configuration of bodies attracted to each other by the gravitational force. It is a measure of the amount of work necessary to get the two bodies from a chosen point of reference to their present position. This point of






49. The force that binds protons and neutrons together in the atomic nucleus.






50. For an oscillating spring - the restoring force exerted by the spring is directly proportional to the displacement. That is - the more the spring is displaced - the stronger the force that will pull toward the equilibrium position. This law is expres

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