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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. An area of high air pressure that acts as the wave trough for sound waves. The spacing between successive rarefactions is the wavelength of sound - and the number of successive areas of rarefaction that arrive at the ear per second is the frequency -






2. A collision in which momentum is conserved but kinetic energy is not.






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






4. The amount of heat necessary for a material undergoing sublimation to make a phase change from gas to solid or solid to gas - without a change in temperature.






5. The cosine of an angle in a right triangle is equal to the length of the side adjacent to the angle divided by the length of the hypotenuse.






6. 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 .






7. A small particle-like bundle of electromagnetic radiation.






8. The bending of light at the corners of objects or as it passes through narrow slits or apertures.






9. The building blocks of all matter - atoms are made up of a nucleus consisting of protons and neutrons - and a number of electrons that orbit the nucleus. An electrically neutral atom has as many protons as it has electrons.






10. Done when energy is transferred by a force. The work done by a force F in displacing an object by s is W = F · s.






11. A pendulum consists of a bob connected to a rod or rope. At small angles - a pendulum's motion approximates simple harmonic motion as it swings back and forth without friction.






12. 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.






13. 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






14. The sum of a system's potential and kinetic energy. In many systems - including projectiles - pulleys - pendulums - and motion on frictionless surfaces - mechanical energy is conserved. One important type of problem in which mechanical energy is not






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






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






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






18. A mirror that is curved such that its center is farther from the viewer than the edges - such as the front of a spoon. Concave mirrors reflect light through a focal point.






19. 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.






20. A unit of force: 1 N is equivalent to a 1 kg · m/s2.






21. A vector quantity - commonly denoted by the vector s - which reflects an object's change in spatial position. The displacement vector points from the object's starting position to the object's current position in space. If an object is moved from poi






22. An object cannot be cooled to absolute zero.






23. The force involved in beta decay that changes a proton to a neutron and releases an electron and a neutrino.






24. The name of an electron released from the surface of a metal due to the photoelectric effect.






25. A mirror that is curved such that its center is closer to the viewer than the edges - such as a doorknob. Convex mirrors reflect light away from a focal point.






26. Heat transfer via electromagnetic waves.






27. 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






28. A law - || = - which states that the induced emf is the change in magnetic flux in a certain time.

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29. 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






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

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31. Two oscillators that have the same frequency and amplitude - but reach their maximum displacements at different times - are said to have different phases. Similarly - two waves are in phase if their crests and troughs line up exactly - and they are o






32. For two given media - the smallest angle of incidence at which total internal reflection occurs.






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






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






35. In the Bohr model of the atom - the state in which an electron has the least energy and orbits closest to the nucleus.






36. 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.






37. An object that retains its overall shape - meaning that the particles that make up the rigid body stay in the same position relative to one another.






38. 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






39. An area of high air pressure that acts as the wave crest for sound waves. The spacing between successive compressions is the wavelength of sound - and the number of successive areas of compression that arrive at the ear per second is the frequency -






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






41. Indicates how "bouncy" or "stiff" a spring is. More specifically - the spring constant - k - is the constant of proportionality between the restoring force exerted by the spring - and the spring's displacement from equilibrium. The greater the value






42. The units of frequency - defined as inverse-seconds (1 Hz = 1 s-1). "Hertz" can be used interchangeably with "cycles per second."






43. 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.






44. In a right triangle - the tangent of a given angle is the length of the side opposite the angle divided by the length of the side adjacent to the triangle.






45. Linear momentum - p - commonly called "momentum" for short - is a vector quantity defined as the product of an object's mass - m - and its velocity - v.






46. Objects that experience oscillatory or simple harmonic motion when distorted. Their motion is described by Hooke's Law.






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






48. 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






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






50. A constant - - not to be confused with wavelength - that defines the speed at which a radioactive element undergoes decay. The greater is - the faster the element decays.