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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. A quantity that possesses a magnitude but not a direction. Mass and length are common examples.
Kepler's First Law
Wave
Center of mass
Scalar
2. When an object is held in circular motion about a massive body - like a planet or a sun - due to the force of gravity - that object is said to be in orbit. Objects in orbit are in perpetual free fall - and so are therefore weightless.
Orbit
Isotope
Absolute zero
Kinetic friction
3. The temperature at which a material will change phase from solid to liquid or liquid to solid.
Kinetic friction
Melting point
Basis vector
Constructive interference
4. 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.
Atom
Cycle
Doppler shift
Radioactive decay
5. The dot product of the area and the magnetic field passing through it. Graphically - it is a measure of the number and length of magnetic field lines passing through that area. It is measured in Webers (Wb).
Reflect
Temperature
Magnetic flux
Polarization
6. 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.
Wave
Radius of curvature
Law of reflection
Basis vector
7. The number - N - of neutrons in an atomic nucleus.
Convection
Reflected ray
Equilibrium
Neutron number
8. The principle by which the displacements from different waves traveling in the same medium add up. Superposition is the basis for interference.
Superposition
Specific heat
Real image
Neutron
9. Heat transfer via the mass movement of molecules.
Gold foil experiment
Principal axis
Convection
Traveling waves
10. 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.
Coherent light
Destructive interference
Right-hand rule
Efficiency
11. 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
Isotope
Angular velocity
Wavelength
Meson
12. The ratio of the size of the image produced by a mirror or lens to the size of the original object. This number is negative if the image is upside-down.
Kinematics
Magnification
Rotational motion
Normal
13. The force that binds protons and neutrons together in the atomic nucleus.
Strong nuclear force
Energy
Electromagnetic wave
Joule
14. With spherical mirrors - the center of the sphere of which the mirror is a part. All of the normals pass through it.
Reflect
Gravitational Potential Energy
Center of curvature
Mass number
15. A coefficient that tells how much the volume of a solid will change when it is heated or cooled.
Superposition
Collision
Coefficient of volume expansion
Momentum
16. When dealing with reflection or refraction - the incident ray is the ray of light before it strikes the reflecting or refracting surface.
Incident ray
Strong nuclear force
Fundamental
Electronvolt
17. 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.
Momentum
Instantaneous velocity
Index of refraction
Focal point
18. The building blocks of all matter - quarks are the constituent parts of protons - neutrons - and mesons.
Wave speed
Constructive interference
Quark
Uncertainty principle
19. 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.
Law of reflection
Kinetic energy
Pitch
Latent heat of vaporization
20. The number of hydrogen atoms in one gram of hydrogen - equal to . When counting the number of molecules in a gas - it is often convenient to count them in moles.
Ideal gas law
Mole
Rotational kinetic energy
Velocity
21. A system with many parts in periodic - or repetitive - motion. The oscillations in one part cause vibrations in nearby parts.
Nuclear fission
Momentum
Wave
Harmonic series
22. A scale for measuring temperature - defined such that 0K is the lowest theoretical temperature a material can have. 273K = 0ºC.
Work
Kelvin
Right-hand rule
Tail
23. Relates the angle of incidence to the angle of refraction: .
24. Two materials are in thermal equilibrium if they are at the same temperature.
Thermal equilibrium
Real image
Weight
Uniform circular motion
25. A constant in the numerator of a formula.
Energy
Period
Snell's Law
Constant of proportionality
26. 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.
Thermal equilibrium
Boiling point
Photoelectric effect
Latent heat of sublimation
27. The amount of energy that metal must absorb before it can release a photoelectron from the metal.
Michelson-Morley experiment
Work function
Universal gas constant
Magnitude
28. 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.
Wave speed
Thermal equilibrium
Acceleration
Crest
29. In the graphical representation of vectors - the tail of the arrow is the blunt end (the end without a point).
Kinetic friction
Tail
Ideal gas law
Frequency
30. 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.
Activity
Boiling point
Inelastic collision
Mass number
31. A property common to both vectors and scalars. In the graphical representation of a vector - the vector's magnitude is equal to the length of the arrow.
Phase change
Magnitude
Spring constant
Isolated system
32. The acceleration of a body experiencing uniform circular motion. This acceleration is always directed toward the center of the circle.
Centripetal acceleration
Latent heat of transformation
Newton
Meson
33. 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.
Meson
Maxima
Margin of error
Rotational motion
34. 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.
Tangent
Alpha particle
Scalar
Power
35. The force necessary to maintain a body in uniform circular motion. This force is always directed radially toward the center of the circle.
Crest
Free
Centripetal force
Radian
36. The force between two surfaces moving relative to one another. The frictional force is parallel to the plane of contact between the two objects and in the opposite direction of the sliding object's motion.
Latent heat of fusion
Joule
Kinetic friction
Weightlessness
37. Any vector can be expressed as the sum of two mutually perpendicular component vectors. Usually - but not always - these components are multiples of the basis vectors - and ; that is - vectors along the x-axis and y-axis. We define these two vectors
Component
Hooke's Law
Transformer
Torque
38. The current induced in a circuit by a change in magnetic flux.
Phase change
Quark
Entropy
Induced current
39. The gravitational force exerted on a given mass.
Maxima
Gravitational Potential Energy
Inversely proportional
Weight
40. The energy of the molecules that make up an object. It is related to heat - which is the amount of energy transferred from one object to another object that is a different temperature.
Free
Neutron
Thermal energy
Reflection
41. Life- The amount of time it takes for one-half of a radioactive sample to decay.
Half
Specific heat
Sine
Beats
42. An almost massless particle of neutral charge that is released along with a beta particle in beta decay.
Neutrino
Dot product
First Law of Thermodynamics
Activity
43. 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.
Uniform circular motion
Alpha decay
Ideal gas law
Convex lens
44. A small particle-like bundle of electromagnetic radiation.
Photon
Rigid body
Absolute zero
Kepler's Third Law
45. A unit vector is a vector with length 1.
Unit vector
Angular position
Translational motion
Sound
46. When two waves of slightly different frequencies interfere with one another - they produce a "beating" interference pattern that alternates between constructive (in-phase) and destructive (out-of-phase). In the case of sound waves - this sort of inte
Convex lens
Translational kinetic energy
Beats
Normal force
47. A nuclear reaction in which a high-energy neutron bombards a heavy - unstable atomic nucleus - causing it to split into two smaller nuclei - and releasing some neutrons and a vast amount of energy at the same time
Nuclear fission
Zeroth Law of Thermodynamics
Reflection
Coefficient of static friction
48. In the Bohr model of the atom - the state in which an electron has the least energy and orbits closest to the nucleus.
Work-energy theorem
Coefficient of static friction
Latent heat of transformation
Ground state
49. A vector quantity - equal to the rate of change of the angular velocity vector with time. It is typically given in units of rad/s2.
Diffraction
Coefficient of linear expansion
Pitch
Angular acceleration
50. A particle - which consists of two protons and two neutrons. It is identical to the nucleus of a helium atom and is ejected by heavy particles undergoing alpha decay.
Legs
Alpha particle
Neutron
Mole