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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 standing wave with the lowest frequency that is supported by a string with both ends tied down is called the fundamental - or resonance - of the string. The wavelength of the fundamental is twice the length of the string - .
Gold foil experiment
Normal force
Fundamental
Energy
2. The temperature at which a material will change phase from solid to liquid or liquid to solid.
Thermal equilibrium
Neutron
Melting point
Kepler's Third Law
3. A positively charged particle that - along with the neutron - occupies the nucleus of the atom.
Component
Proton
Boiling point
Planck's constant
4. The experience of being in free fall. If you are in a satellite - elevator - or other free-falling object - then you have a weight of zero Newtons relative to that object.
Weightlessness
Longitudinal waves
Universal gas constant
Optics
5. 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.
Angular velocity
Latent heat of vaporization
Mass defect
Sine
6. 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
Photon
Photoelectron
Angular velocity
Neutrino
7. In radioactive substances - the number of nuclei that decay per second. Activity - A - will be larger in large samples of radioactive material - since there will be more nuclei.
Activity
Cosine
Loudness
Index of refraction
8. Waves in which the medium moves in the direction perpendicular to the propagation of the wave. Waves on a stretched string - water waves - and electromagnetic waves are all examples of transverse waves.
Transverse waves
Harmonic series
Node
Kelvin
9. An experiment by Ernest Rutherford that proved for the first time that atoms have nuclei.
Angular acceleration
Gold foil experiment
Speed
Snell's Law
10. The net change - - in a point's angular position - . It is a scalar quantity.
Ground state
Work function
Refracted ray
Angular displacement
11. For a heat engine - the ratio of work done by the engine to heat intake. Efficiency is never 100%.
Isotope
Refracted ray
Magnitude
Efficiency
12. A body or set of bodies that we choose to analyze as a group.
Atom
Rarefaction
System
Hypotenuse
13. 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.
Basis vector
Weber
Universal gas constant
Frictional force
14. 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
Zeroth Law of Thermodynamics
Medium
Moment of inertia
Ideal gas law
15. The time - T - required for a rigid body to complete one revolution.
Kinetic energy
Trough
Angular period
Equilibrium
16. The process by which a solid turns directly into gas - because it cannot exist as a liquid at a certain pressure.
Kinematic equations
Pitch
Sublimation
Motional emf
17. A vector quantity defined as the rate of change of the displacement vector with time. It is to be contrasted with speed - which is a scalar quantity for which no direction is specified.
Equilibrium position
Velocity
Optics
Speed
18. Energy cannot be made or destroyed; energy can only be changed from one place to another or from one form to another.
Law of conservation of energy
Beats
Mass number
Tension force
19. In the graphical representation of vectors - the tip of the arrow is the pointy end.
Tip
Efficiency
Angle of refraction
Static friction
20. The number - N - of neutrons in an atomic nucleus.
Electron
Neutron number
Tension force
Cycle
21. A unit for measuring angles; also called a "rad." 2p rad = 360º.
Isotope
Latent heat of transformation
Normal
Radian
22. 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.
Potential energy
Atomic number
Sublimation
Tail
23. 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
Beats
Component
Sublimation
Index of refraction
24. 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.
Convex lens
Completely inelastic collision
Concave mirror
Angular velocity
25. The units of frequency - defined as inverse-seconds (1 Hz = 1 s-1). "Hertz" can be used interchangeably with "cycles per second."
Oscillation
Hertz (Hz)
Magnitude
Hooke's Law
26. The angle between a reflected ray and the normal.
Legs
Electronvolt
Mutual Induction
Angle of reflection
27. An object that moves about a stable equilibrium point and experiences a restoring force that is directly proportional to the oscillator's displacement.
Diffraction grating
Coefficient of volume expansion
Simple harmonic oscillator
Virtual image
28. 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.
Kinetic friction
Tangent
Optics
Inversely proportional
29. The distance between successive wave crests - or troughs. Wavelength is measured in meters and is related to frequency and wave speed by = v/f.
Wavelength
Tangent
Constant of proportionality
Melting point
30. The square of the amplitude of a sound wave is called the sound's loudness - or volume.
Angular frequency
Loudness
Mole
Distance
31. A pulley is a simple machine that consists of a rope that slides around a disk or block.
Maxima
Superposition
Kelvin
Pulley
32. The angle between a refracted ray and the line normal to the surface.
Charles's Law
Hertz (Hz)
Angle of refraction
Axis of rotation
33. The energy of a particle rotating around an axis.
Rotational kinetic energy
Equilibrium
Longitudinal waves
Uncertainty principle
34. When electromagnetic radiation shines upon a metal - the surface of the metal releases energized electrons. The way in which these electrons are released contradicts classical theories of electromagnetic radiation and supports the quantum view accord
Photoelectric effect
Dot product
Radian
Coefficient of kinetic friction
35. The ray of light that is refracted through a surface into a different medium.
Centripetal acceleration
Charles's Law
Refracted ray
Destructive interference
36. 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.
Inertial reference frame
Half
Isolated system
Kinetic theory of gases
37. When a solid - liquid - or gas changes into another phase of matter.
Uniform circular motion
Phase change
Center of mass
Entropy
38. 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.
Kinetic theory of gases
Collision
Electron
Magnification
39. 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.
Sine
Concave lens
Uncertainty principle
Neutron number
40. The two shorter sides of a right triangle that meet at the right angle.
Legs
Harmonic series
Directly proportional
Cosine
41. Given the period - T - and semimajor axis - a - of a planet's orbit - the ratio is the same for every planet.
42. In the Bohr model of the atom - the state in which an electron has the least energy and orbits closest to the nucleus.
Radian
Mechanical energy
Ground state
Tip
43. A wavelength - given by = h/mv - which is associated with matter. Louis de Broglie proposed the idea that matter could be treated as waves in 1923 and applied this theory successfully to small particles like electrons.
De Broglie wavelength
Focal point
Newton's Law of Universal Gravitation
Half
44. A wave with wave crests that propagate down the length of the medium - in contrast to stationary standing waves. The velocity at which a crest propagates is called the wave speed.
Atom
Planck's constant
Traveling waves
Coherent light
45. 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
Angle of reflection
Threshold frequency
Energy
46. The index of refraction n = c/v of a substance characterizes the speed of light in that substance - v. It also characterizes - by way of Snell's Law - the angle at which light refracts in that substance.
Inertia
System
Rutherford nuclear model
Index of refraction
47. 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.
Nuclear fission
Coefficient of static friction
Kepler's Third Law
Hertz (Hz)
48. The phenomenon by which light traveling from a high n to a low n material will reflect from the optical interface if the incident angle is greater than the critical angle.
Oscillation
Total internal reflection
Gold foil experiment
First Law of Thermodynamics
49. The point of a mirror or lens where all light that runs parallel to the principal axis will be focused. Concave mirrors and convex lenses are designed to focus light into the focal point. Convex mirrors and concave lenses focus light away from the fo
Wave
Uniform circular motion
Translational kinetic energy
Focal point
50. A measure of force per unit area. Pressure is measured in N/m2 or Pa.
Pressure
Temperature
Conduction
De Broglie wavelength