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






2. The amount of heat necessary to transform a liquid at a given temperature into a gas of the same temperature - or the amount of heat needed to be taken away from a gas of a given temperature to transform it into a liquid of the same temperature.






3. An image created by a mirror or lens in such a way that light does not actually come from where the image appears to be.






4. A rough approximation of how gases work - that is quite accurate in everyday conditions. According to the kinetic theory - gases are made up of tiny - round molecules that move about in accordance with Newton's Laws - and collide with one another and






5. The current induced in a circuit by a change in magnetic flux.






6. 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.






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






8. 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.






9. The property by which a charge moving in a magnetic field creates an electric field.






10. A vector quantity - - that reflects the change of angular displacement with time - and is typically given in units of rad/s. To find the direction of the angular velocity vector - take your right hand and curl your fingers along the particle or body






11. 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






12. 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.






13. 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.






14. When a light ray strikes a surface - the angle of incidence is the angle between the incident ray and the normal.






15. A coefficient that tells how much the volume of a solid will change when it is heated or cooled.






16. Waves produced by a source that is moving with respect to the observer will seem to have a higher frequency and smaller wavelength if the motion is towards the observer - and a lower frequency and longer wavelength if the motion is away from the obse






17. If a line is drawn from the sun to the planet - then the area swept out by this line in a given time interval is constant.

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18. 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.






19. 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






20. The mass number - A - is the sum of the number of protons and neutrons in a nucleus. It is very close to the weight of that nucleus in atomic mass units.






21. Essentially a restatement of energy conservation - it states that the change in the internal energy of a system is equal to the heat added plus the work done on the system.






22. The gravitational force exerted on a given mass.






23. The model of the atom according to which negatively charged electrons orbit a positively charged nucleus. This model was developed by Ernest Rutherford in light of the results from his gold foil experiment.






24. 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






25. An object that moves about a stable equilibrium point and experiences a restoring force that is directly proportional to the oscillator's displacement.






26. 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






27. The force necessary to maintain a body in uniform circular motion. This force is always directed radially toward the center of the circle.






28. For a gas held at a constant temperature - pressure and volume are inversely proportional.

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29. The amount of error that's possible in a given measurement.






30. A coefficient that tells how much a material will expand or contract lengthwise when it is heated or cooled.






31. A particle - identical to an electron. Beta particles are ejected from an atom in the process of beta decay.






32. The effect of force on rotational motion.






33. The force between two surfaces that are not moving relative to one another. The force of static friction is parallel to the plane of contact between the two objects and resists the force pushing or pulling on the object.






34. Also called a converging lens - a lens that is thicker in the middle than at the edges. Convex lenses refract light through a focal point.






35. The net change - - in a point's angular position - . It is a scalar quantity.






36. 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.






37. Two quantities are inversely proportional if an increase in one results in a proportional decrease in the other - and a decrease in one results in a proportional increase in the other. In a formula defining a certain quantity - those quantities to wh






38. 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.






39. In reference to oscillation - amplitude is the maximum displacement of the oscillator from its equilibrium position. Amplitude tells how far an oscillator is swinging back and forth. In periodic motion - amplitude is the maximum displacement in each






40. 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.






41. A class of elementary particle whose mass is between that of a proton and that of an electron. A common kind of meson is the pion.






42. A scalar quantity that tells us how fast an object is moving. It measures the rate of change in distance over time. Speed is to be contrasted with velocity in that there is no direction associated with speed.






43. A measurement of a body's inertia - or resistance to being accelerated.






44. An experiment by Ernest Rutherford that proved for the first time that atoms have nuclei.






45. 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.






46. To every action - there is an equal and opposite reaction. If an object A exerts a force on another object B - B will exert on A a force equal in magnitude and opposite in direction to the force exerted by A.

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47. 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






48. 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.






49. The path of each planet around the sun is an ellipse with the sun at one focus.

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50. The velocity at any given instant in time. To be contrasted with average velocity - which is a measure of the change in displacement over a given time interval.